^m^^M 


^0^^  ^rjxncx^  0JR<Jttrkr. 


HISTORY  OF  NATIONS. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/capitaloftycoonn01alcoiala 


THE  MIKADO 


,  4'.';.  ^r  3»'J*V  '"«'  ' 


THE 


CAPITAL  OF  THE  TYCOON: 


A  NARRATIVE  OF  A 


THREE  YEARS'  RESIDENCE  IN  JAPAN. 


BY  SIR  RUTHERFORD  ALCOCK,  K.C.B,, 

;  HAJESTT'B  KirVOT  KXTBAOBDENABT  and  MINIBTXK  PUD(IP0T]ENTIABT  in  tATAK. 


WITH  HAPS  AND  mmEROUS   ILLD8TKATI0MS. 


Look  ye  1  master  Traveler :  onlesa  ye  note  something  irorth  the  seeing,  and  come  home 
wiser  than  ye  went,  I  wouldn't  glre  a  stag's  horn  for  all  your  travels.' 


IN  TWO  VOLUMES. 

VOL.  I. 


THE  BRADLEY   COMPANY,  PUBLISHERS. 

NEW  YOBK 


AA  .UNIVERSITY  OF  C,A LTPORNIA 

A 4  SANTA  BARBABA     ^ 


TO 


SIR  JOHN  F.  DAVIS,  BART.,  K.C.B. 

My  dear  Sir  John, — The  age  of  formal  dedications  and 
stilted  prefaces  has  long  passed  away,  and  it  may  safely  be 
assumed  that  they  ceased  to  be  written,  because  the  public 
ceased  to  read  them.  As  often  happens  in  like  cases,  all 
parties  gained  by  the  arrangement;  and  I  have  no  intention 
whatever  of  reviving  an  obsolete  custom.  Yet  something 
in  the  nature  of  an  introduction  is  often  a  great  advantage 
both  to  the  writer  and  the  reader ;  and  I  think  in  the  pres- 
ent instance  the  latter  will  turn  the  pages  over  with  more 
satisfaction,  if  the  circumstances  under  which  the  book  has 
been  written  and  the  principal  objects  kept  in  view  by  the 
writer  are  first  understood. 

In  determining  to  write  a  few  introductory  remarks  for 
the  benefit  of  those  who,  like  yourself,  will  take  up  the  book 
for  what  it  may  contain,  and  in  a  letter  to  your  address,  I 
am  glad  of  the  opportunity  thus  afforded  me  of  saying  pub- 
licly, that  to  no  one  could  such  a  work  on  Japan  as  it  has 
been  my  aim  to  supply,  have  been  more  fitly  dedicated,  on 
public  grounds,  than  to  the  author  of  the  best  and  only  pop- 
ular work  we  possess  on  the  Chinese  Empire,  and  the  first 
who  succeeded  in  making  the  subject  familiar  to  readers  in 
general.  While  on  personal  grounds,  to  whom  could  I  more 
appropriately  have  addressed  this  latest  fruit  of  my  labors 
in  the  East,  than  to  the  chief  under  whom  I  first  commenced 
my  career  in  those  regions,  now  nearly  twenty  years  ago  ? 
Or  to  one  whose  interest  in  those  outlying  empires  of  the 
far  East  has  never  flagged ;  and  who,  I  am  quite  sure,  will 
read  this  new  contribution  to  our  information  on  the  Japa- 
nese with  all  the  attention  the  most  earnest  and  conscien- 
tious writer  could  desire. 


vi  PREFACE. 

You  will  soon  perceive  that  I  have  not  written  merely 
for  amusement — either  my  own  or  the  reader's — and  yet  I 
should  be  sorry  to  think  that  amusement  may  not  be  found 
in  its  pages;  for  if  I  hesitate  to  adopt  in  its  fullest  sense  the 
French  axiom, '  ious  les  genres  sont  bons  hors  le genre  ennuyeux,^ 
I  am  quite  sure  that  he  who  wearies  never  convinces  or  per- 
suades, and  I  desire  to  do  both.  With  the  best  intention, 
however,  there  have  been  many  difficulties  to  overcome  in 
the  effort  to  give  to  the  public  a  work  calculated  to  satisfy 
the  desire  for  something  novel  and  instructive  concerning 
the  Japanese  Empire.  To  write  any  thing  that  should  be 
worth  reading,  and  yet  not  trench  upon  the  rule  of  official 
reserve  in  all  matters  not  open  to  public  discussion,  was  in 
itself  a  difficulty  independent  of  every  other.  It  might  have 
been  easy  to  put  a  new  face  on  things  old  and  familiar,  but 
this  did  not  enter  into  my  plan.  In  drawing  up  this  narra- 
tive of  a  three  years'  residence  at  the  Court  of  the  Tycoon, 
I  had,  on  the  contrary,  two  objects  more  especially  in  view, 
neither  of  which  could  be  attained  by  any  such  procedure. 
The  one  was  to  give  the  results  of  a  careful  study  of  the  sin- 
gular people  among  whom  my  lot  had  been  cast,  and  thus, 
if  possible,  supply  a  great  deficiency  in  our  knowledge,  from 
personal  observation  and  original  resources ; — the  other,  to 
throw  some  light,  however  faint  and  broken,  on  the  condi- 
tions of  all  Western  diplomacy  in  its  struggles  with  Eastern 
character  and  Eastern  policy.  The  latter  was  in  some  de- 
gree new  ground,  and  had  therefore  the  recommendation  of 
novelty ;  but  it  had  also  a  disadvantage  attaching,  which 
you  will  readily  appreciate  from  having  occupied  a  similar 
official  position.  Narratives  of  missions  to  distant  countries, 
and  to  Eastern  Courts  more  particularly,  have  often  before 
appeared,  it  is  true,  written  either  avowedly  by  the  Envoys 
themselves,  or  by  the  Secretaries,  with  their  sanction  and 
materials.  Indeed,  to  these  sources  the  world  is  chiefly  in- 
debted for  most  of  the  information  we  actually  possess  at 
the  present  day  of  countries  which  lie  out  of  the  beaten 
track  of  Western  diplomacy.     But,  in  the  majority  of  these 


PREFACE.  vh 

cases,  the  writers  had  retired  from  the  scene  of  their  labors, 
and  were  not  likely  therefore  to  be  brought  in  contact  again 
with  those  whose  acts  they  may  have  described.  And  I 
should  probably  have  hesitated,  had  it  not  seemed  important 
to  furnish  materials  for  a  right  judgment,  in  matters  of  na- 
tional concern  connected  with  Japan  and  our  relations  there, 
— while  it  might  yet  be  time  to  avert,  by  the  intelligent  ap- 
preciation of  our  true  situation,  grievous  disappointment  as 
well  as  increased  complications  and  great  calamities,  A 
free  expression  of  opinion  in  matters  of  public  interest  is  not 
to  bo  lightly  adventured  upon  however ;  and,  in  many  cases, 
those  holding  ofl&ce  are  altogether  precluded  from  such  ac- 
tion. At  the  same  time,  much  mischief  is  often  done  by  un- 
due reticence  in  matters  which  must,  in  a  country  like  ours, 
be  the  subject  of  public  discussion.  It  so  happened  that  I 
was  relieved  from  any  difficulty  under  this  head,  by  the  pub- 
lication, in  extenso,  of  the  greater  number  of  my  dispatches, 
which  were  printed  and  laid  before  Parliament.  And  not 
only  was  the  necessity  for  silence  obviated  by  such  publica- 
tion in  this  country,  but  a  similar  course  was  followed  at 
Washington  in  respect  to  the  dispatches  of  my  colleague, 
the  American  Minister,  during  the  same  period.  As  in  each 
of  these  series  there  is  a  very  unreserved  expression  of  opin- 
ion as  to  the  political  situation  of  the  country,  the  action 
of  the  Japanese  authorities,  the  views  entertained  by  Col- 
leagues, and  the  conduct  of  the  Foreign  communities, — the 
decision  of  the  respective  Governments  of  both  countries  to 
make  the  dispatches  public,  and  this  so  freely  as  to  leave 
little  of  a  confidential  character  unprinted,  eflfectually  re- 
moved all  the  impediments  which  might  otherwise  have  ex- 
isted. Secret  diplomacy  is  a  favorite  taunt  of  our  Trans- 
atlantic cousins  when  criticising  European  institutions  and 
government;  but,  in  so  far  as  Great  Britain  is  concerned,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  show  any  nation,  not  even  the  Ameri- 
cans themselves,  less  open  to  the  reproach.  The  discussion 
of  public  affairs  in  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  the  free  ex- 
pression of  opinion  on  the  most  delicate  questions  affecting 


viii  PREFACE. 

our  international  relations,  and  the  ample  information  re- 
quired in  Parliament,  and  given  by  the  heads  of  depart- 
ments, both  verbally  and  in  Blue  Books,  are  all  so  many 
refutations  of  any  charge  of  this  nature,  and  result  so  natu- 
rally and  unavoidably  from  our  popular  form  of  govern- 
ment, that  nothing  really  secret  or  confidential  can  well 
remain  in  the  archives  of  any  public  office.  With  such 
documents  and  information  before  the  public  in  regard  to 
Japanese  affairs,  therefore  there  could  be  little  room  for  in- 
discretion in  any  farther  contributions  on  the  same  subject. 
You  will  accordingly  find  no  transaction  of  an  official  char- 
acter touched  upon  in  these  pages,  and  no  opinion  expressed 
on  the  progress  of  events,  the  policy  these  seemed  to  indi- 
cate, or  the  people  with  whom  I  came  in  contact  in  my  offi- 
cial capacity,  that  can  take  any  one  by  surprise  as  new,  or 
that  has  not  already  been  in  print.  But,  as  regards  the 
reading  public,  I  do  not  think  that  circumstance  will  in  any 
degree  deprive  the  work  of  its  claims  to  novelty.  Blue 
Books  are  often  full  of  valuable  matter,  but  they  do  not 
generally  find  a  place  among  the  popular  literature  of  the 
day.  A  process  of  distillation  and  transmutation  has  first 
to  take  place,  through  the  leaders  of  the  daily  press  and  the 
pages  of  periodicals,  before  they  become  fit  food  for  the  mil- 
lion ;  and  something  of  this  kind  I  have  endeavored  to  ac- 
complish here  in  respect  to  our  political  relations.  The 
same  leading  facts  will  be  found  in  both,  but  not  in  the  same 
digestible  shape  or  form.  As  regards  the  Japanese  authori- 
ties, my  Colleagues,  or  the  Foreign  communities  in  Japan, 
I  repeat  there  is  nothing  in  my  opinions,  as  here  narrated, 
which  has  not  been  freely  spoken  on  the  spot,  or  that  could 
well  be  unknown  to  any  of  the  parties  immediately  con- 
cerned, even  if  not  already  in  print.  Those  opinions  may 
not  always  be  flattering,  either  to  the  Japanese  or  to  others, 
and  I  do  not  expect  they  will  be  liked ;  but  I  have  great 
faith  in  honesty  of  purpose  and  absence  of  malice,  and  these 
must  be  my  justification  now  as  heretofore.  Truth  I  be- 
lieve to  be  far  less  dangerous,  to  those  who  have  the  courage 


PEEFACE.  ix 

to  utter  it,  than  misapprehension  or  misrepresentation.  I 
have  never  disguised  from  the  Japanese  authorities,  as  my 
published  dispatches  prove,  the  opinions  I  entertained  of 
their  proceedings  toward  Foreigners  from  time  to  time,  and 
the  unsatisfactory  course  of  action  generally  pursued.  If  I 
have  spoken  in  these  pages  of  the  authorities  generally,  the 
system  of  government,  and  more  especially  their  policy  to- 
ward Foreigners,  honestly  according  to  my  knowledge  and 
convictions,  I  told  them  on  the  spot  quite  as  honestly  and 
plainly  what  those  convictions  were.  And  yet  I  had  con- 
clusive evidence,  at  the  hour  of  my  departure,  that  they  ap- 
preciated the  fairness  of  my  dealings,  and  trusted  me,  more 
absolutely  and  entirely,  than  I  could  have  believed  possible, 
without  such  unmistakable  proof  as  they  spontaneously  gave 
me.  Nor  will  the  two  things  seem  incompatible  to  any  one 
who  has  had  much  experience  of  Asiatics.  You  must  often 
have  seen,  in  your  long  intercourse  with  Easterns,  how  un- 
faOingly  they  learn,  in  spite  of  their  own  habitual  want  of 
veracity,  to  trust  in  the  truth  and  respect  the  honesty  of  one 
of  our  race,  if,  after  some  intercourse,  they  find  that  he  will 
not  stoop  to  trickery  or  falsehood  for  any  temporary  advan- 
tage either  may  give. 

So  much  for  the  ofl&cial  difiiculties  of  my  task.  But 
these  were  not  the  only  ones  to  be  encountered.  The  in- 
corrigible tendency  of  the  Japanese  to  withhold  from  For- 
eigners or  disguise  the  truth  on  all  matters  great  and  small ; 
and  consequently  the  absence  of  reliable  information  on  al- 
most every  subject  necessary  to  the  full  elucidation  of  their 
character,  institutions,  and  system  of  government,  consti- 
tuted another  obstacle. 

In  the  following  work  I  have  only  sought,  therefore,  to 
render  a  faithful  account  of  what  I  observed,  with  better 
opportunities  as  a  resident  Minister  in  the  capital  than  had 
been  enjoyed  by  any  previous  writer  on  Japan.  But  hav- 
ing studied  the  practical  working  of  the  Government  ma- 
chinery— the  policy  adopted  in  relation  to  Foreigners,  and 
the  action  of  hostile  parties  among  the  privileged  classes,  I 

A2 


X  PREFACE. 

believed  I  miglit  bring  some  useful  materials  to  aid  the  con- 
sideration of  our  own  interests.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
narrative  I  have  given  of  all  the  trials  and  difficulties  which 
surround  a  Diplomatic  Agent  in  such  a  field  is  calculated, 
I  hope  and  believe,  to  throw  some  new  light  on  questions 
which,  of  all  others,  have  most  engrossed  public  attention 
of  late  years  in  connection  with  our  Eastern  relations,  name- 
ly, what  are  the  essential  and  inherent  conditions  attaching 
to  all  Western  diplomacy  in  the  East?  What  are  the  ne- 
cessities and  exigencies — with  our  will,  or  against  it — which 
govern  our  action?  Lastly,  what  are  the  limits  within 
which  we  may  reasonably  look  for  success  in  our  efforts  to 
amalgamate  two  conflicting  civilizations,  and  open  new 
markets  for  our  manufactures,  without  resort  to  force,  or 
coercive  means  of  any  kind  ?  While  discussing  these  deli- 
cate questions,  I  have  carefully  avoided  expressing  any 
opinion  of  my  own  as  to  the  policy  actually  to  be  foUowed, 
and  confined  myself  to  a  statement  of  the  probable  or  inev- 
itable conditions  of  different  courses  of  action  which  might 
be  suggested,  as  matters  in  the  abstract  perfectly  open  to 
discussion.  In  my  position,  it  is  not  for  me  either  to  pre- 
scribe or  to  advocate  in  these  pages  a  particular  policy.  My 
business  is  to  afford  the  best  information  in  my  power,  and 
in  office  to  carry  out  such  instructions  as  I  may  receive. 

With  the  details  of  my  daily  life,  and  the  leading  events 
which  marked  the  first  three  years  of  a  permanent  Legation 
in  the  capital  of  the  Tycoon,  you  will  see  I  have  mingled 
illustrations  of  the  life,  manners,  and  customs  of  the  Japan- 
ese of  all  classes  —  from  the  Feudal  Prince  with  his  two- 
sworded  henchmen  and  retainers,  to  the  humble  and  peace- 
loving  peasant.  With  many  of  these  I  came  more  or  less 
constantly  in  contact,  and  sometimes  under  unlooked-for 
and  striking  circumstances.  The  relations  between  the  dif- 
ferent classes  was  always  a  subject  of  great  interest  to  me, 
and  in  my  journeys  through  the  interior  I  had  many  op- 
portunities, not  otherwise  attainable,  of  studying  them  with 
advantage.    I  trust,  therefore,  the  work,  upon  the  whole,  ia 


PREFACE.  ad 

not  likely  to  disappoint  any  reader  who  seeks  information 
on  the  character  of  the  people,  their  daily  life,  manners,  and 
customs.  And  as  giving  many  curious  glimpses  of  the 
working  of  their  laws,  their  peculiar  system  of  government 
and  a  masked  policy,  something  of  interest  may  also  be 
found.  In  so  far  as  these  are  true  revelations,  they  can  not 
well  fail  to  be  acceptable  to  many.  To  you  it  will  be  read- 
ily enough  apparent  that  I  have  sought  especially  to  lay 
bare  the  inherent  difficulties  under  which  all  commercial 
and  diplomatic  relations  with  the  far  East,  for  many  years 
to  come  at  least,  must  be  maintained,  if  maintained  at  all ; 
and  the  risks  to  be  encountered  in  any  efforts  to  open  new 
markets  in  these  regions.  On  this  part  of  the  subject  exact 
information  has  long  been  much  needed.  Nor  do  I  think 
any  Government  can  lose  by  the  truth  being  known.  Nei- 
ther the  Japanese  Government,  which  may  seem  the  most 
damaged  by  these  expositions  of  their  habitual  course 
(founded,  as  I  believe,  in  partial  ignorance  of  certain  immu- 
table conditions),  fraught  with  danger  to  them  and  to  us, 
nor  Her  Majesty's  Government,  which  (in  equal  ignorance 
of  those  same  inevitable  and  inseparable  conditions)  is  some- 
times expected  or  required  to  effect  impossibilities.  There 
will  always  be  pressure  upon  any  government  of  the  day  in 
a  manufacturing  country  like  ours,  to  open  new  markets 
and  impose  new  treaties  upon  Eastern  races ;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  there  will  also  be  a  strong  pressure,  from  mo- 
tives of  economy  and  philanthropy,  either  separate  or  com- 
bined, to  keep  the  peace  and  avoid  Eastern  complications. 
Can  both  these  objects  be  reconciled,  or  are  the;,  wholly  and 
absolutely  incompatible?  That  is  a  question  which  it  be- 
hooves all  parties  to  answer  rightly  and  with  full  knowl- 
edge. Governments  are  often  made  responsible  for  results 
which  no  government  in  the  world  can  prevent.  This  is 
especially  true  in  regard  to  the  relations  of  Western  with 
Eastern  Powers ;  and  if  the  natural  causes  at  work  were 
better  understood,  or  the  laws  which  govern  them,  there 
would  not  only  be  less  chance  of  injustice,  but  very  much 


xii  PREFACE. 

less  disappointment.  Perhaps,  too,  less  eagerness  for  Treaty- 
relations  with  Eastern  races,  wholly  unprepared  to  enter 
into  them  in  any  spirit  of  reciprocity  and  good  will.  But 
to  exercise  any  good  influence  in  this  direction,  beneficial 
alike  to  governments  and  subjects,  it  was  obviously  neces- 
sary to  state  the  truth  in  sufficient  fullness  and  detail  to  car- 
ry conviction,  as  well  as  to  give  needful  information.  There 
is,  in  truth,  no  alternative  between  this  and  saying  nothing. 
Any  partial,  mutilated,  or  half  statements  of  the  real  state 
of  affairs,  and  the  influences  in  operation,  would  be  worse 
than  none  at  all ;  because,  while  there  would  be  a  pretense 
of  giving  information,  the  account  so  given  could  only  tend 
to  mislead.  I  have  told  all  I  thought  necessary,  therefore, 
without  a  doubt  as  to  the  benefit  such  true  knowledge  of 
Eastern  politics  and  conditions  of  intercourse  is  calculated 
to  bring  in  its  train  ;  and  without  fear,  I  will  add,  of  being 
held  censurable,  for  clearing  the  way  to  a  better  apprecia- 
tion of  the  difficulties  inherent  in,  and  inseparable  from  all 
political  and  commercial  relations  with  Eastern  tribes  and 
potentates.  Both  the  nations  and  their  Kulers  have  as  yet 
every  thing  to  learn  of  the  principles  which  govern  rela- 
tions between  Western  Powers,  and  are  apt  to  make  very 
sad  blunders — sad  in  their  immediate  consequences  to  them 
and  to  us — while  learning  their  lesson  and  gaining  some 
faint  notion  of  the  first  principles  of  international  law.  Pub- 
lic opinion  in  a  country  constitutionally  governed  as  this  is, 
must  always  be  felt,  and  exercise  a  strong  influence  on  any 
government  in  power;  it  is  the  more  necessary,  therefore, 
that  it  should  be  a  right  opinion,  enlightened  and  guided  by 
knowledge,  and  not  a  blind  judgment  based  upon  ignorance 
or  misapprehension.  The  actual  existence  of  danger  and 
risk  of  collision,  wherever  there  is  intercourse  established 
between  the  East  and  West — and  whatever  may  be  the  de- 
sire for  peace  on  the  part  of  European  Governments  or  the 
efforts  of  their  Representatives  on  the  spot — is  only  begin- 
ning to  be  recognized ;  while  many  still  doubt  the  fact,  and 
are  disposed  to  lay  all  such  untoward  complications  at  the 


PREFACE.  xiii 

door  of  the  agents  employed.  If  I  succeed  in  removing 
some  erroneous  impressions  under  this  head,  and  in  giving 
more  full  and  authentic  information  as  to  the  present  state 
of  Japan  than  has  hitherto  been  attainable,  I  shall  be  well 
content;  for  with  this  object  principally  I  sat  down  to 
write. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  tell  you  that  this  has  no  pre- 
tension whatever  to  be  considered  an  exhaustive  book  on 
Japan.  Not  only  would  such  a  work,  in  my  opinion,  be  un- 
avoidably tedious,  but  I  have  a  perfect  conviction  no  for- 
eigner is  yet,  or  will  be  for  many  years  to  come,  in  a  posi- 
tion to  write  it.  Nevertheless,  having  had  better  oppor- 
tunities of  observation  than  any  one,  perhaps,  since  the 
Portuguese  and  Spaniards  wandered  at  large  through  the 
Empire,  and  traveled  and  seen  more  with  my  own  eyes,  I 
may,  without  much  presumption,  hope  to  have  something 
to  communicate  that  shall  be  both  new  and  true  of  the  peo- 
ple of  Japan — of  their  language  and  habits,  as  well  as  their 
political  and  social  condition. 

Although  I  had  long  forsworn  all  regular  journalizing, 
yet  on  my  arrival  in  Japan,  conscious  how  impressions  fade 
and  opinions  change,  and  how  impossible  it  often  becomes 
in  after  years  to  retrace  and  compare  them,  as  aids  to  a  final 
judgment,  I  began  and  continued  from  day  to  day,  as  cir- 
cumstances presented  themselves  seemingly  worthy  of  at- 
tention, to  make  certain  fragmentary  notes  of  men  and  things 
during  my  long  residence  in  the  capital  and  my  several 
journeys  and  voyages.  I  was  not,  therefore,  without  a 
rough  chart  of  the  road  I  had  traversed,  and  landmarks  jot- 
ted down  on  the  spot,  fresh  with  the  impress  of  the  hour. 

Many  of  these  brief  and  informal  records  of  things  or 
events  I  found,  on  looking  back,  were  much  more  pregnant 
of  suggestion  than  they  had  appeared  at  the  time,  and  cal- 
culated incidentally  to  throw  a  reflected  light  on  Japanese 
character  and  institutions.  It  has  been  my  purpose,  there- 
fore, to  preserve  as  far  as  possible  these  first  impressions, 
and  unstudied  touches  of  the  pencil,  with  such  corrections 


Xiv  PREFACE. 

and  amplifications  only,  as  later  experience  and  fuller 
knowledge  may  have  enabled  me  to  supply.  For  this  rea- 
son principally,  I  resolved  to  give  any  book  I  should  write 
the  form  of  a  narrative,  and  arrange  in  chronological  order 
my  residence  and  its  experiences.  If  this  has  some  disad- 
vantages to  those  who  would  desire  a  more  systematic  and 
scientific  treatise  on  the  History,  Government,  and  Institu- 
tions of  Japan,  it  has  the  advantage  of  imparting  something 
of  a  living,  if  not  a  personal,  interest  to  the  whole. 

The  narrative  I  have  given  would  have  a  certain  inter- 
est, I  conceive,  if  all  other  were  wanting,  as  a  contrast  to  the 
pleasant  and  amusing  account  furnished  by  Mr.  Oliphant  of 
Lord  Elgin's  mission,  and  to  that  previously  supplied  by 
Commodore  Perry's  expedition.  Both  sides  of  the  medal 
give  important  revelations.  The  history  of  the  Extraordi- 
nary Missions  show  the  Japanese  rulers  under  the  pressure 
of  a  sudden  danger  and  emergency  for  which  they  felt  fully 
unprepared.  Submission  to  the  exigencies  of  Western  Pow- 
ers, which  some  inexorable  fate  seemed  to  have  let  slip  upon 
their  devoted  country ;  or  resistance  with  arms  in  their 
hands,  seemed  the  only  alternatives.  The  Japanese  did,  un- 
der these  circumstances,  what  almost  every  Eastern  race  has 
done  in  presence  of  a  superior  force.  They  negotiated  and 
treated,  because  they  felt  unprepared  to  fight.  They  smiled 
and  dissimulated,  employing  their  utmost  skill  to  give  as 
little  as  possible ;  and  reserving  to  themselves  the  full  right 
hereafter  of  nullifying  all  they  might  feel  compelled  for  the 
time  to  surrender.  The  Foreign  negotiators  went  away 
well  pleased  with  their  easy  victories.  The  Japanese  Plen- 
ipotentiaries retired  in  disgrace ;  while  their  successors  in 
the  Government  deeply  meditated,  in  the  interval  before 
the  arrival  of  the  permanent  Legations,  upon  a  policy  of 
negation,  accepting  the  letter,  but  determined  on  resistance 
ci  Toutrance  to  the  spirit  of  the  treaties.  It  naturally  follow- 
ed that  the  Diplomatic  Agents  first  appointed  to  take  up 
their  residence  in  the  capital  were  beset  with  difficulties, 
dangers,  and  disappointments  from  the  hour  of  their  arri- 


PREFACE.  XV 

val.  Their  predecessors,  the  Ambassadors  Extraordinary, 
had  only  to  extort  certain  privileges  on  paper;  it  was  the 
business  of  the  resident  Ministers  to  make  of  these  paper- 
concessions  realities — practical,  every-day  realities.  As  this 
was  the  very  thing  the  Eulers  of  the  country  had  detcnn- 
ined  to  prevent,  it  can  not  be  matter  of  wonder  that  there 
was  not,  and  never  could  be,  any  real  accord,  whatever  the 
outward  professions  of  good  faith  and  amity.  Hence  also 
it  naturally  followed  that,  although  the  original  negotiators 
were  received  with  smiles,  and  their  path  was  strewn  with 
flowers,  their  successors  had  only  the  poisoned  chalice  held 
to  their  lips,  thorns  in  their  path,  and  the  scowl  of  the  two- 
sworded  bravos  and  Samourai  to  welcome  them  whenever 
they  ventured  to  leave  their  gates,  while  the  assassin  haunt- 
ed their  steps,  and  broke  their  rest  in  the  still  hours  of  the 
night,  with  fell  intent  to  massacre  a  whole  Legation. 

No  wonder  two  authorities  so  differently  placed  should 
see  Japan  from  different  points  of  view  and  in  a  wholly  dif- 
ferent light !  The  history  of  the  first  permanent  Legations 
was  needful  to  complete  and  give  the  true  interpretation 
to  that  of  the  first  special  Embassies.  And  this  I  have 
endeavored  to  give,  faithfully  and  candidly,  in  the  follow- 
ing chapters.  The  French  have  a  whole  class  of  literature 
entitled  ^  Memoires  pour  servir  d  Vhistoire,^  which,  without 
aiming  at  the  gravity  and  authority  of  history,  furnishes 
nevertheless  the  most  valuable  materials  for  it.  In  this  cat- 
egory I  would  place  my  narrative  of  a  three  years'  experi- 
ence in  Japan.  It  has  been  said  that '  the  experiment,  now 
on  its  trial,  of  allowing  a  free  circulation  of  the  European 
within  the  frontier  which  for  the  last  two  hundred  years 
has  been  steadily  barred  against  all  intrusive  strangers  what- 
soever, is  in  its  circumstances  one  of  the  most  singular  in  the 
known  history  of  the  world,'  To  a  certain  extent  undoubt- 
edly it  may  be  so  considered.  But  it  will  only  prove  ei- 
ther interesting  or  instructive  in  so  far  as  the  true  details 
of  the  experiment  are  known,  and  these  could  only  be  given 
by  a  narration  of  the  events,  day  by  day,  which  marked  the 


Xvi  PKEFACK 

unceasing  struggle  between  Western  diplomacy  and  East- 
ern policy.  Nor  could  it  have  answered  any  useful  pur- 
pose to  have  deferred  this  until  all  the  present  actors  were 
in  their  graves.  On  the  contrary,  it  must  be  obvious  that 
any  object  of  utility  could  only  be  attained  by  giving  the 
information  at  once. 

Again  it  has  been  observed,  that  those  who  live  in  the 
nineteenth  century  are  familiar  'with  the  difficulties  of  fus- 
ing into  a  harmonious  coexistence  the  progressive  develop- 
ment of  an  inferior  people,  and  the  immediate  interests  of  a 
superior,  where  an  obviously  higher  and  lower  phase  of  civ- 
ilization intersect  each  other.'  Whether  our  civilization  is 
so  undoubtedly  higher,  and  in  what  degree,  I  have  serious- 
ly examined  in  the  Chapter  devoted  to  the  '  Civilization  of 
the  Japanese ;'  and  perhaps  the  conclusions  to  which  I  have 
been  led  may  be  little  in  accordance  with  some  stereotyped 
notions  of  what  the  actual  civilization  of  Europe  is,  as  well 
as  of  the  feasibility  of  the  undertaking  to  effect  any  fu- 
sion with  the  East  in  a  single  generation  or  by  exclusive- 
ly peaceable  means.  But  I  have  given,  with  a  conscien- 
tiousness of  inquiry  and  amount  of  detail  which,  I  fear,  may 
be  tedious  to  many,  the  various  grounds  for  my  opinion, 
and  am  thus  content  to  leave  both  questions  to  all  who 
choose  to  give  the  requisite  attention  for  their  impartial  in- 
vestigation. Whatever  may  be  the  relative  merits  and  rank 
of  the  two  civilizations,  there  can  be  no  question  that  we  are 
the  stronger  race — stronger  in  all  the  means  and  appliances 
of  science  and  war.  And  if  we  fall  into  active  antagonism, 
of  which  there  has  been  a  constant  danger,  despite  the  best 
efforts  of  European  Diplomacy  to  avert  it  as  a  great  nation- 
al calamity,  there  can  be  just  as  little  doubt  that  the  Japan- 
ese would  be  overmatched  and  vanquished.  But  yet,  un- 
der the  simple  relation  of  conquered  and  conquerors,  look- 
ing to  the  difference  of  race  and  character,  and  the  striking 
contrast  in  purpose,  mental  constitution,  and  appreciation 
of  each  other — the  struggle  once  over  there  could  be  no 
possible  fusion.    The  attraction  would  seem  to  be  wanting, 


PREFACE.  Xvii 

powerful  enough  to  blend  in  cohesion  the  elements  on  which 
a  mixed  or  amalgamated  civilization  could  be  based.  We 
can  not  hope  or  desire  to  absorb  their  civilization  as  the 
Spaniards  did  that  of  the  Mexicans.  There  seems  as  little 
hope  of  their  spontaneously  fusing  into  their  own  such  of 
the  elements  of  ours  as  might  best  combine  with  it  Fail- 
ing these,  we  are  left  face  to  face  with  an  insoluble  problem, 
involving  the  welfare  and  the  destinies  of  a  nation  of  thirty 
millions  of  as  industrious,  kindly,  and  well-disposed  people 
as  any  in  the  world.  Toward  the  solution,  I  bring  only 
such  data  as  years  of  constant  effort  in  the  midst  of  all  the 
conflicting  forces  could  supply.  Time,  the  great  solver  of 
all  riddles,  is  needed  to  come  to  our  aid.  But  as  the  record 
of  a  novel  experience,  throwing  some  light  on  the  difficul- 
ties and  dangers  which  beset  all  attempts  to  enter  into  new 
relations  with  an  isolated  Eastern  race,  I  trust  it  may  be  read 
with  some  interest.  More  especially  is  the  field  new,  be- 
cause with  the  Japanese  we  take  a  step  backward  some  few 
centuries,  to  live  over  again  the  Feudal  days  which  marked 
our  own  past  in  Japanese  history.  Feudalism,  accordingly, 
after  time  and  out  of  place,  is  here,  with  sufficient  identity 
and  analogy  in  all  its  leading  features  to  make  the  coinci- 
dence striking,  and  yet  with  sufficient  divergence  to  make 
its  study  in  this  Eastern  phase  deeply  interesting.  Perhaps 
the  following  pages  may  suggest  some  useful  reflections  as 
to  how  the  dangers  incident  to,  and  apparently  inseparable 
from,  such  an  experiment  as  we  are  now  engaged  in,  may 
be  best  encountered.  In  any  case,  it  will  be  seen  Feudalism 
lies  full  in  our  path.  We  must  either  conciliate  it,  or  hold 
our  own  against  its  most  hostile  efforts. 

I  would  gladly  have  given  a  full  and  complete  history  of 
the  Japanese  Empire,  and  its  internal  organization,  but  I 
feel — perhaps  more  strongly  in  consequence  of  my  favored 
position  in  the  country — how  difficult,  not  to  say  impossi- 
ble, it  must  be,  with  only  such  opportunities  of  observation 
as  Europeans  have  hitherto  enjoyed,  to  accomplish  such  an 
object     It  has  been  said  that '  it  is  the  homes  of  a  people 


xviii  PREFACE. 

that  shape  and  mould  the  character  of  a  nation,'  and  I  be- 
lieve  it ;  but,  if  so,  what  can  we  know  of  the  homes  of  the 
Japanese  ?  Of  the  lower  classes  we  see  something,  since 
their  homes  are  all  more  or  less  open  to  the  street.  In  their 
daily  habits  and  mode  of  life,  there  can  be  very  little  of  mys- 
tery or  secrecy.  But  of  the  higher  classes,  who  has  ever 
seen  an  interior?  Such  is  the  rigid  rule  of  a  jealous  oli- 
garchy, headed  by  a  nominally  despotic  sovereign,  that  the 
Daimios  may  not  even  visit  each  other,  as  the  Ministers 
one  day  took  occasion  to  assure  me  in  reference  to  those 
who  sat  side  by  side  with  them  in  the  presence  chamber. 
Friends  and  colleagues  though  they  were,  they  might  not 
cross  each  other's  threshold — hold  neighborhood  relations. 
Whether  any  thing  in  the  shape  of  social  life  therefore  ex- 
ists— whether  there  are  living  springs  of  thought,  or  ele- 
ments of  progress  and  elevation  in  their  homes — who  can 
say  ?  Are  the  home  influences  purifying  or  demoralizing  ? 
Are  the  relations  of  husband  and  wife,  brother  and  sister, 
such  as  we  know  them  in  Europe  ?  Who  is  in  a  position 
to  offer  any  thing  more  than  a  guess  ?  It  has  been  said  of 
the  Moslem  that '  he  has  no  home,  no  real  relationship  of 
father  and  mother,  son  and  daughter,  as  we  understand  such 
ties :  the  harem  is  a  stye,  woman  a  mere  animal,  and  man 
but  the  sensual  proprietor  of  both,  while  the  children  are  a 
miserable  litter.'  Is  this  a  fair  picture  of  a  Japanese  estab- 
lishment also?  Probably  not.  We  see  and  know  much  that 
leads  us  to  conclude  something  different  and  better  exists, 
but  what  that  something  is  must  be  very  much  a  matter  of 
guess,  founded  upon  inference  from  the  few  facts  that  we 
do  know.  Yet  all  this  is  vastly  more  important,  and  more 
interesting  in  reference  to  their  place  in  the  family  of  na- 
tions, their  civilization,  and  future  prospects,  than  any  frame- 
work of  government  and  public  administration — as  much 
more  important  as  the  growth  and  development  of  internal 
organization  and  conditions  of  being  in  plants  or  animals 
is  of  greater  consequence  than  mere  external  forms.  The 
home  relations  are  mainly  the  product  of  influences  devel- 


PREFACE. 


XIX 


oped  under  their  own  roof- tree,  which  no  forms  of  govern- 
ment can  materially  or  permanently  control.  Whether  the 
same  may  with  equal  truth  be  said  of  any  foreign  importa- 
tion of  ideas,  or  how  far  these  may  be  capable  of  materially 
affecting  the  mental  constitution  and  social  relations  of  a 
people  in  a  few  years  or  a  single  generation,  may  be  a  ques- 
tion. The  Japanese  Rulers  evidently  have  already  consid- 
ered it,  and  arrived  at  a  decision  in  the  afl&rmative.  Hence 
one  great  cause  of  implacable  hostility.  They  see  in  this 
introduction  of  foreign  ideas  a  leaven,  a  cause  of  fermenta- 
tion, and  a  germ  of  revolution. 

In  looking  to  the  future  of  the  Japanese  Empire,  and  our 
relations  with  the  people,  it  behooves  us  above  all  things,  I 
conceive,  to  obtain  a  knowledge  of  the  more  intimate  fami- 
ly relations  existing  among  them ;  and,  after  that,  it  imports 
us  no  less  to  know  the  true  character  of  the  existing  feu- 
dalism. The  relations  between  the  serf  and  his  feudal  chief, 
and  of  both  these  to  the  suzerain  and  executive  govern- 
ment, which,  in  Japan,  is  divided  and  strangely  duplicated, 
are  no  less  needed.  These  are  the  keys  wherewith  to  un- 
lock the  mysteries  of  their  policy,  and  the  secret  of  their 
vitality  as  a  nation.  When  we  can  really  know  what  they 
now  are,  not  in  mere  outward  lineaments,  but  in  their  whole 
being,  habits  of  thought,  and  principles  of  action,  we  shall 
be  better  able  to  form  a  correct  opinion  as  to  what  they  are 
likely  to  become  in  one  or  several  generations  from  the 
present  time.  Whether  there  be  any  germs  of  a  vigorous 
growth  in  their  cities — any  cradle  for  a  new  and  more  ad- 
vanced race  in  their  homesteads  —  any  moral  stimulants 
existing  among  the  masses  which  may  waken  up  a  new 
life,  and  give  a  greater  impetus  to  the  energies  of  the  many, 
in  the  direction  of  a  higher  and  more  progressive  civiliza- 
tion— these  are  the  questions  which  constantly  recur  to  the 
mind  of  a  patient  observer,  and  press  upon  him  for  answer, 
long  before  he  sees  any  means  of  arriving  at  sufficient  data 
whereon  to  found  a  conclusion. 

I  have  scrupulously  endeavored  to  write  my  own  thoughts, 


XX 


PREFACE. 


without  reference  to  what  may  have  been  said  by  others  on 
the  same  subject  before.  In  the  illustrations  alone  I  have 
freely  borrowed,  and  when  my  own  sketch-book  failed  to 
meet  the  want  of  the  hour,  I  turned  to  the  portfolios  of  my 
friends,  and  sometimes  to  their  photographic  labors;  but 
these,  also,  in  so  far  as  the  public  are  concerned,  are  entire- 
ly new  and  original,  and  were  all  taken  on  the  spot,  under 
my  own  eye.  Some  of  these,  from  the  pencil  of  Mr,  Werg- 
man,  have  a  merit  peculiarly  their  own,  both  in  artistic 
treatment  and  fidelity.  The  fac-similes  of  numerous  Jap- 
anese wood-cuts  could  hardly  be  surpassed  in  fidelity  and 
eflfect 

With  these  preliminary  remarks,  which  will  at  least  have 
answered  the  purpose  of  preparing  you  for  some  of  the  in- 
formation and  many  of  the  views  to  be  found  in  the  follow- 
ing pages — and,  perhaps,  of  saving  the  reader  from  disap- 
pointment at  the  absence  of  many  things  I  do  not  pretend 
to  give — I  leave  the  book,  such  as  it  is,  to  your  judgment, 
and  to  that  of  the  public  for  whom  it  was  written.  It  has 
been  undertaken  in  the  hope  of  supplying  information  not 
easily  obtained,  but  very  necessary  to  any  right  apprecia- 
tion of  the  relations  of  Europe  with  the  eastern  half  of  Asia 
— with  China  and  Japan  more  especially.  And  the  present 
state  as  well  as  the  future  prospects  of  both  countries  in 
connection  with  the  "West  have  become,  within  the  last  few 
years,  subjects  of  such  importance  to  the  British  Empire,  in 
connection  with  both  trade  and  revenue,  that  no  exact  in- 
formation can  well  be  unacceptable.  On  these  subjects  I 
shall  find  in  you  a  competent  judge,  and  a  critic  neither 
blinded  by  hostility  nor  biased  by  partiality — and  to  such 
the  book  is  in  all  sincerity  addressed.  In  the  hope  that  its 
perusal  may  not  be  wholly  without  pleasure  or  profit,  be 
lieve  me,  my  dear  Sir  John,  very  faithfully  yours, 

KUTHEBFOKD  AlCOCK. 
London,  January  21s;,  1863. 


CONTENTS  TO  VOL   I. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Previsions  and  Preparations. — A  Glance  at  Canton. — Hongkong  and  Ma- 
c&o,  with  their  contrasted  Destinies. — Shanghae. — The  Yangtze  and  the 
Chinese  Empire. — The  Past  and  the  Future Page  31 

CHAPTER  II. 

Voyage  to  Nagasaki. — Japan  as  it  was,  or  a  Glance  at  the  Japanese  Chron- 
icles, and  what  they  tell  us 64 

CHAPTER  III. 
First  Impressions. — Nagasaki 86 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Nagasaki  to  Yeddo.  —  The  Work  of  Two  Centuries  undone  in  as  many 
Years. — EflTect  upon  the  Japanese  Mind. — How  its  Rulers  felt  under  such 
Innovations. — ^The  Touch-stone  of  Trial. — First  Arrival  of  the  British  and 
American  Diplomatic  Agents  at  Yeddo  to  take  up  a  permanent  Resi- 
dence   98 

CHAPTER  V. 
The  Capital  and  its  Environs. — Stereoscopic  Views  of  Town  and  Country  114 

CHAPTER  VL 
First  Lessons  in  Japanese  Diplomacy 138 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Exchange  of  Ratifications. — News  of  the  Repulse  at  the  Peiho. —  Hermit 
Life  in  Yeddo. — Conditions  of  Exile  and  Isolation. — ^Life  in  a  Wilderness 
of  Men  and  Women 160 

CHAPTER  Vm. 
The  Japanese  Language. — First  Lessons  in  Grammar  and  Speaking....  160 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Japanese  Sayings  and  Doings 172 

CHAPTER  X. 
A  Glance  at  Japanese  Politics. — How  the  two  American  Treaties  were  made 
and  inaugurated.  —By  whom  the  Country  is  governed,  and  how. 190 

CHAPTER  XI. 
First  Bloodshed. — Arrival  of  Count  Mouravieff  Amoorsky  with  a  Russian 
Squadron. — An  OflScer  and  two  of  the  Sailors  butchered  in  the  Streets  of 
Yokohama. — European  Diplomacy  and  Eastern  Policy 214 


xxii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XII. 
ImproTing  Prospects. — An  Official  Interview  with  the  two  Ministers  of  For- 
eign Affairs. — Ride  Home  by  Moonlight. — How  Yeddo  appears  after  Sun- 
set  Page  224 

CHAPTER  Xin. 

A  Visit  to  Hakodadi. — The  Lead  Mines. — Governor. — Prospects  of  Trade. 

Potatoes  and  Salmon  the  great  Staples 240 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Mnrder  of  French  Consul's  Servant  at  Yokohama.  —  The  Gold  Currency 
Question  again. — Tycoon's  Palace  burned  down. — Proposition  of  Japan- 
ese Ministers  to  stop  all  Official  Business  in  consequence 261 

CHAPTER  XV. 
A  Country  Walk. — Agriculture,  Trees,  and  Flora  of  Japan. — Peasant  Life 
and  Prison  Life. — Natural  History. — Japanese  Lacker-ware  and  skillful 
Workmanship. — Monster  Bazar 260 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  New  Year,  1860,  and  what  it  brought. — Incendiary  Fire  at  Yokohama. 
—  Assassination  of  a  Linguist  at  the  Gate  of  the  British  Legation. — 
Gloomy  Prospects. — Fire  at  the  French  Legation  the  same  Night ....  288 

CHAPTER  XVn. 

Murder  of  the  Regent  on  his  Way  to  the  Tycoon's  Palace. — Narrative  of 
what  tookPlace. — General  Alarm  and  Sense  of  Insecurity. — The  Legations 
surrounded  by  Japanese  Guards  for  their  Protection  from  Attack. — The 
Times  of  the  Guelfs  and  Ghibelines  resuscitated. — Subsequent  Acts  of  the 
Conspirators,  and  how  they  disposed  of  the  Regent's  Head. — Popular  Sto- 
ries and  Legends.  —  Story  of  the  forty-seven  Lonins.  —  Influence  of  such 
Literature  and  Hero-worship  on  the  Morality  and  Actions  of  the  Peo- 
ple   304 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Stray  Leaves  from  a  Journal. — Thoughts  discursive  and  retrospective  on 

Japanese  Relations. — Speculations  on  the  Future. — Trade  Returns  and 

Greneral  Results. — Retrospect  of  the  first  Twelve  Months  after  the  opening 

of  the  Ports  by  Treaty. — The  Gain  and  the  Loss  summed  up 314 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
Audience  of  the  Tycoon. — Preliminary  Difficulties. — Importance  in  the  East 
of  seeming  Trifles 328 

CHAPTER  XX. 
Change  of  Scene. — A  Pilgrimage  to  Fusiyama,  and  a  Visit  to  the  Spas  of 
Atami 340 

CHAPTER  XXL 
The  Sulphur  Springs  of  Atami. — Village  Life  in  Japan. — Paper  Manufac- 
tory.— ^The  Moxa 374 


CONTENTS.  Xxiii 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
The  High  Road  to  the  Capital,  and  those  who  Trarel  on  it Page  395 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  VOL.  L 


Map  of  Japan,  in  the  front  paqi 

The  Village  Beauty Frontispiece. 

Hongkong 40 

Macao 45 

Followers  of  the  'Great  Peace'  Dynasty 57 

Chinese  under  the  Tartar  Dynasty 64 

Nagasaki  Harbor 87 

A  Japanese  Salutation 92 

Lonin  rending 93 

Japanese  Norimon 105 

Japiincsc  Cango 105 

How  Japanese  rest 106 

Japanese  Page  in  attendance 106 

How  the  Japanese  sleep 107 

Yeddo  from  the  Avenne Ill 

A  Group  of  'Jolly  Beggars' 117 

Mendicant  Singers 1 19 

Merchandise  in  the  Streets  of  Yeddo 121 

Shopkeeper  going  to  a  CuKtonier 122 

Horse  carrying  Liquid  Manure 124 

How  Mothers  dispose  of  their  Infants 121 

The  Paternal  Nurse 125 

Type  of  the  'Dangerous  Classes' 128 

Woman  of  Yeddo  in  Winter  Garb 132 

The  Samourai 134 

Officer  on  urgent  Duty 136 

Female  Head-dress 180 

Tea-house  Attendant 182 

Writing  a  Letter  of  Divorce 184 

Love-letter  discovered 184 

Conjugal  Service 185 

A  Japanese  Servant  or  Workman 186 

A  Japanese  prostrating  himself  before  his  Snperion 1 88 

Weighed  in  the  Balance. 223 

Night  Scene 227 

B 


XXVI  MST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAOS 

Japanese  Ladies  in  the  Bath 230 

After  the  Bath 231 

A  Japanese  at  his  Toilet  for  a  Visit  of  Ceremony 232 

Female  Costume 238 

Female  Dress 239 

Music  Girl,  with  Servant  carrying  her  Instrument 239 

The  Evening  Meal 239 

Bay  of  Hakodadi 240 

Female  Costume 243 

Society  of  Hakodadi 250 

Carding  Machine  for  separating  the  Grain 261 

How  they  separate  the  Grain 262 

Japanese  Plowing 263 

How  they  cover  the  Seed 263 

How  they  use  Manure 265 

Manuring  Process 265 

Mode  of  protecting  Land  from  Birds 267 

The  Peasant's  Luxury 268 

Wild-fowl 272,273 

Scene  in  a  Silk-shop 275 

Agricultural  Process 284 

Homeward  Bound 322 

Court  Dress  of  the  Japanese 333 

Japanese  'Lords  in  Waiting' 334 

Fusiyama  from  the  Suburbs  of  Yeddo 340 

How  Japanese  Beasts  of  Burden  comport  themselves 343 

Salutation  of  mine  Host 346 

Interior  of  a  Kitchen 347 

A  Japanese  Maritomes 349 

Well-earned  Rest 349 

Crossing  the  River  to  Odawara 361 

The  Lake  of  Hakoni 360 

Fusiyama  from  Yosiwara 366 

Ascent  of  Fusiyama 371 

Pilgrims  on  the  Road 373 

Horsefish 380 

Atami  and  its  Monuments 388 

Life  at  Atami — a  Peasant  and  his  Wife  returning  from  Labor 389 

The  Village  Aqueduct - 392 

Returning  from  Sea-fishing 393 

A  Japanese  traveling 394 

How  the  Unprivileged  travel  on  the  High  Road 396 

Itinerant  Musicians 397 

Yaconin  on  Service 398 

On  the  Road  to  Yeddo 399 

Returning  from  Market , , , 399 


LIST  OP  ILLUSTRATIONS.  xxvii 

FAOE 

Fishermen 400 

The  Blind  Gentleman 401 

A  Female  Ostler 402 

Passing  the  River  Logo 403 

'  Saionara' 407 


NARBATIVE  OF 

A  THREE  YEARS'  RESIDENCE  IN  JAPAN. 
VOL.  I. 


A    NARRATIVE 

OF 

THREE  YEARS'  RESIDENCE  IN  JAPAN. 


CHAPTER  I. 

FEOM  CHINA  TO  JAPAN. 


Previsions  and  Preparations. — A  Glance  at  Canton. — Hongkong  and  Ma- 
c&o,  with  their  contrasted  Destinies. — Shanghae. — The  Yangtze  and  the 
Chinese  Empire. — The  Fast  and  the  Future. 

In  consequence  of  the  treaty  entered  into  with  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Tycoon  by  the  Earl  of  Elgin  in  1858,  it  became 
necessary  to  establish  a  permanent  diplomatic  mission  in  Ja- 
pan ;  and  it  was  yet  early  in  the  spring  of  the  following  year 
when  I  received,  at  Canton,  the  first  intimation  of  my  appoint- 
ment as  its  head.  To  me,  as  to  the  rest  of  the  world  probably 
at  this  period,  Japan  was  all  but  a  terra  incognita.  No  very 
definite  ideas,  indeed,  could  well  be  attached  to  a  country  so 
long  and  so  completely  isolated.  Time  and  distance  had  done 
much  to  efface  the  memory  of  whatever  had  once  been  learned 
by  personal  observation,  of  a  people  who  for  the  last  three  cen- 
turies had  resolutely  shut  their  doors,  not  only  in  their  neigh- 
bors' faces,  but  on  all  mankind.  Even  in  China,  separated  only 
by  a  narrow  sea  which  steamers  now  cross  in  three  days,  little 
that  was  either  positive  or  accurate  could  be  learned.  In 
1846,  when  residing  at  Foochow,  a  port  which  every  alternate 
year  received  a  junk  from  the  Loochoo  Islands,  a  dependency 
of  Japan,  I  endeavored  to  get  into  communication  with  the  na- 
tives who  came  over  in  it.  Neither  my  oflicial  position  nor 
personal  efforts  availed,  however.  The  policy  of  both  races — 
Chinese  and  Japanese — to  exclude  and  avoid  the  foreigner, 
was  too  perfectly  in  accord  to  allow  of  success.  And  these 
were  the  people  I  was  now  destined  to  live  among  I  Nearly 
lost  in  the  haze  of  a  distant  horizon,  Japan,  if  not  wholly  for- 
gotten, had  become  invested  with  a  sort  of  traditional  and 
mythic  character.    The  quaint  phraseology  of  the  early  En- 


32  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  I. 

glish  navigators,  as  stereotyped  by  Purchas,  in  which  the  first 
narratives  of  voyages  to  Japan  and  things  Japanese  are  writ- 
ten, had  given  a  mediaeval  coloring  to  all  our  knowledge  of 
the  country  and  the  people.  Nor  was  this  much  affected  by 
the  more  lively  descriptions,  and  easy  flowing  Italian  of  the 
noble  Venetian,  Marco  Paolo ;  the  solace  of  whose  prison  hours 
in  Genoa  was  to  recount  to  his  visitors  all  the  wonders  he  had 
seen  and  heard  of  at  the  court  of  Genghis  Khan  ;  and  among 
the  latter  were  these  '  Isles  washed  by  stormy  seas  —  and 
abounding  in  gold  and  pearls.'  But  Marco  MiUione  (a  title 
which  the  marvelous  nature  of  his  stories  earned  him  among 
his  countrymen)  was,  in  regard  to  Japan,  only  a  narrator  of 
what  he  had  heard  from  the  Chinese ;  and  the  account  taken 
down  from  his  dictation  by  one  of  his  friends  did  not  appear 
in  print  for  nearly  two  centuries  after  his  death.  Mendez 
Pinto,  who  wrote  much  later  of  what  he  had  seen  (or  said  he 
had  seen),  when  he  gave  his  adventures  to  the  world  in  Portu- 
guese, found  no  translator,  in  those  days  at  least,  nor  since  that 
I  am  aware  of.  One  of  the  earliest  who  followed  in  the  track 
of  Vasco  da  Gama  round  the  Cape,  he  was  cast  on  the  shores 
of  Japan  by  stress  of  weather,  and  had  to  make  out  the  best 
story  he  could  of  his  past  history  and  pursuits.  Merchant, 
pirate,  or  filibuster  by  turns,  and  as  occasion  served,  he  appears 
to  have  found  it  by  no  means  an  easy  task  to  get  himself  ac- 
cepted by  his  hosts  as  an  honest  trader.  But  he  found  mate- 
rials enough  while  on  the  Chinese  and  Japanese  coasts,  with 
the  aid  of  a  little  invention  perhaps,  for  a  large  folio,  which  I 
remember  disinterring  from  the  back  shop  of  an  old  book  col- 
lector in  Lisbon,  more  than  twenty  years  before  my  departure 
for  the  East.  Some  of  it  I  read  at  the  time  in  the  original, 
little  dreaming  I  should  ever  visit  the  place  this  '  Prince  of 
liars'*  invested  with  such  strange  features  and  peculiarities. 
By  a  no  less  strange  coincidence,  my  Japanese  education  had 
been  continued  many  years  later  when  an  occasional  visitor  at 
the  Monastery  of  Sicawei  near  Shanghae,  by  a  fragmentary 
course  of  the '  Japanese  Martyrs' — such  being  the  title  of  one 
of  the  pious  works,  which,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  or- 
der, are  always  read  aloud  by  a  member  of  the  fraternity  dur- 
ing dinner.  How  little  we  are  aware  to  what  future  use  knowl- 
edge picked  up  in  the  most  fortuitous  way  may  be  applied ! 
From  these  various  sources,  materials  had  been  casually  got 
together  for  the  dissolving  views  which  rapidly  flitted  before 

*  So  Congreve  styles  him,  with  doubtful  justice ;  for  although  he  may 
have  romanced  about  himself,  there  is  reason  to  believe  he  told  much  that 
was  true  of  the  strange  people  he  was  cast  among. 


Chap.  I.]  PREVISIONS.  33 

my  mental  vision  as  I  held  the  dispatch  in  my  hand,  consign- 
ing me  to  a  new  place  of  exile.  My  first  attempts  to  realize 
tlie  future  before  me — the  country  and  the  people  with  whom 
my  lot  was  cast,  were  not,  it  must  be  confessed,  very  success- 
ful. The  series  of  contributors  to  the  sum  of  all  European 
knowledge  of  Japan,  of  later  date  than  those  just  enumerated, 
were  not  altogether  excluded  either.  Koempfer,  Thunberg, 
and  others  (from  whose  works  all  recent  attempts  to  describe 
the  Japanese,  or  their  country  and  institutions,  have  chiefly 
been  compiled),  passed  in  rapid  review.  But  my  knowledge 
of  them  was  probably  too  slight  to  be  of  much  use ;  and  though 
compelled  to  make  an  appearance,  they  came  and  went  like 
flitting  shadows.  The  only  positive  impression  obtained  by 
this  sudden  dragging  forth  of  many  negatives,  long  put  away 
in  the  dark  chambers  of  the  brain,  and  their  subjection  to  the 
strongest  light  I  could  bring  to  bear  at  the  moment,  was,  I 
think,  one — of  immeasurable  distance ! 

A  cluster  of  isles  appeared  on  the  farthest  verge  of  the  ho- 
rizon, apparently  inhabited  by  a  race  at  once  grotesque  and 
savage — not  much  given  to  hospitality,  and  rather  addicted  to 
martyrizing  strangers  of  whose  creed  they  disapproved.  Thus 
much  stood  out  tolerably  distinctly,  but  little  else  that  was 
tangible.  Severance  from  all  social  ties,  isolation  from  one's 
kind,  and  a  pariah  existence,  far  away  from  all  centres  of  civil- 
ization— far  beyond  the  utmost  reach  of  railroad  or  telegraph 
— came  much  more  vividly  before  me;  and  in  Rembrandt 
masses  of  shade — with  but  one  small  ray  of  light,  just  enough 
to  give  force  and  depth  to  the  whole — a  sense  of  duty,  a  duty 
that  rmist  be  done,  whether  pleasant  or  otherwise,  and  about 
which  there  was  no  choice.  What  a  world  of  anxiety  and 
doubt  the  consciousness  of  this  saves  us !  Doubt  and  Suspense 
ai*e  the  great  corroders  and  absorbents  of  life.  A  plain,  clear 
path  to  follow,  however  rough  or  thorn-strewn,  is  far  less  ex- 
hausting and  trying  in  the  end  than  many  divergent  roads, 
with  no  certainty  as  to  the  right  one,  no  ruling  principle  for 
guide,  and  no  definite  goal  beyond. 

To  Japan  my  eyes  were  turning  at  this  moment,  as  likely 
to  furnish  a  new  market  for  the  ever-increasing  industrial  prod- 
ucts of  the  West.  In  this  reopened  field  for  all  kinds  of  efibrts 
and  propagandisms — Commercial,  Political,  and  ReUgious — 
five  Western  Powers  were  about  to  engage.  The  United 
States  of  America,  which  had  led  the  way  by  their  two  treat- 
ies of  1854  and  1858 ;  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Russia,  three 
of  the  greatest  powers  of  the  old  world  by  land  and  sea;  and 
^olland,  the  long-lived  heir  of  the  past,  were  already  on  the 

B2 


34  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.        [Chap.  1. 

spot,  in  the  persons  of  divers  merchants  and  commercial  agents, 
waiting  at  Nagasaki,  and  eager  to  rush  in  as  soon  as  the  ports 
were  opened.  How  this  sudden  influx  of  so  many  nationalities 
was  likely  to  be  regarded  by  the  long-isolated  Japanese  rulers 
could  only  be  matter  of  speculation.  But  if  it  seemed  to  them 
like  the  opening  of  so  many  flood-gates — an  inundation  of  bar- 
barians, and  a  menace  of  destruction — we  could  hardly  wonder. 

In  the  short  interval  before  me,  while  waiting  the  arrival 
from  Europe  of  several  members  of  the  Japanese  Consular  es- 
tablishment, I  found  abundant  occupation  in  getting  furniture 
made,  specially  adapted  to  resist  rough  usage  on  the  deck  of 
a  man-of-war  —  where  it  was  sure  to  get  it  —  to  go  into  the 
smallest  possible  space,  in  order  to  get  taken  at  all  —  and  yet 
to  meet  all  the  innumerable  wants  of  a  large  establishment. 
These  were  conditions  not  very  easily  complied  with  even  in 
Canton,  where  a  colony  of  carpenters  and  cabinet-makers  have 
existed  for  many  generations,  dependent  entirely  upon  the  de- 
mand created  by  foreigners  for  all  kinds  of  wants  —  real  and 
fancied — in  the  shape  of  furniture.  Long  as  the  Cantonese, 
however,  have  been  laboring  in  our  behalf,  and  with  all  their 
imitative  talent,  they  have  never  learned  to  make  a  drawer  to 
fit,  or  to  mortise  the  legs  of  a  chair.  Knowing  their  weakness 
in  this  respect,  I  was  not  much  surprised,  therefore,  on  landing 
in  Japan  some  weeks  later,  to  find,  that,  despite  all  the  mat- 
ting and  packing,  and  other  innumerable  precautions  taken,  my 
chairs  were  delivered  to  me  crippled  and  dilapidated,  so  as  to 
present  a  most  deplorable  picture.  Broken-backed  and  maim- 
ed, with  fractured  arms  and  dislocated  legs,  they  were  fit  for 
nothing,  unless  to  be  laid  up  at  Greenwich  or  Chelsea,  as  relics 
of  a  voyage  to  Japan !  They  had  been  stowed  away  in  the 
cutter  between  the  masts,  for  want  of  room  elsewhere,  no 
doubt  —  a  sort  of  thoroughfare  in  bad  weather,  and  they  had 
borne  the  trafllic  badly ; — but  this  is  to  anticipate. 

In  a  moderately  short  time  I  succeeded,  with  the  assistance 
of  '  Gopo^  and  '•Hopfo^  and  '■Howshing^  with  sundry  others 
of  the  carpenters'  guild  enjoying  equally  characteristic  and  eu- 
phonious names,  in  getting  the  principal  articles  of  furniture 
deemed  most  essential  for  Europeans,  ready  to  embark — for  a 
land  which  boasted  of  none.  I  am  not  sure  that  I  did  not 
sometimes  think  the  Japanese  wiser  in  their  generation,  to 
treat  all  such  things — beds,  tables,  and  chairs,  as  superfluities. 
How  greatly,  for  example,  it  would  simplify  the  question  of 
marriages  on  limited  incomes,  by  striking  out  the  most  expen- 
sive item  of  a  first  establishment — the  upholsterer's  bill!  to 
gay  nothing  of  the  farther  and  permanent  advantage  of  dimin- 


Chap.  I.]  ARRANGEMENTS  COMPLETED.  85 

ishing  household  work  and  the  number  of  servants.  Not  hav- 
ing arrived,  however,  at  such  perfect  simplicity  of  life ;  and 
distrusting  the  wisdom  of  making  the  experiment — of  sitting 
on  my  heels,  and  eating  off  the  mats,  without  preliminary 
training  —  I  felt  obliged  to  undertake  all  the  trouble  and  ex- 
pense of  a  variety  of  rectangular  devices  for  being  comforta- 
ble. Bedsteads  and  mattresses,  they  would  both  take  to  pieces ; 
tables  and  sofas,  cunningly  contrived  to  carry  their  legs  hori- 
zontally beneath  them ;  '  What-nots'  that  collapsed  into  some- 
thing perfectly  flat  and  inappreciable  in  bulk,  and  warranted 
to  rise  story  above  story  on  a  touch,  like  the  children's  'jack 
in  a  box' — all  deftly  put  together  in  solid  mahogany — corded 
and  matted,  soon  filled  up  a  large  space  in  the  entrance  hall  of 
the  hong  temporarily  occupied  as  a  Consulate  in  Canton. 
What  would  I  not  have  given  for  ready  access  to  Herr  Op- 
penheimer  and  the  marvels  of  portable  furniture  since  exhibit- 
ed in  the  International  Exhibition ! 

It  was  still  early  in  May  when  all  the  preparatory  arrange- 
ments were  completed ;  but  spring  had  passed,  and  a  tropical 
summer  was  upon  us.  The  last  few  days  before  my  departure 
from  Canton  had  brought  unmistakable  evidence  of  the  fact. 
With  the  thermometer  standing  in  the  bedroom  at  97°,  mus- 
quitoes  swarming  outside  the  curtains — and  too  often  within, 
sleep  is  a  blessing  which  comes  but  seldom,  and  is  never  sound 
and  refreshing.  In  all  travels  in  the  East,  there  has  always 
seemed  to  me  a  suppressio  veri  in  regard  to  these  Poisoners 
of  the  human  race,  and  Destroyers  of  all  peace.  Whoever  sat 
down  patiently  to  write  either  letter  or  book  in  such  com- 
pany? Not  content  with  sucking  the  blood  out  of  your  veins, 
they  pour  a  venom  into  them,  throwing  the  most  philosophic 
into  a  state  of  fever  and  irritation.  The  heat  itself,  enervating 
and  exhausting  as  it  is,  would  be  ten  times  more  endurable  but 
for  these  winged  plagues.  The  very  noise  of  their  trumpet 
becomes  so  hateful,  that  the  bugle  sounding  the  advance  of  a 
line  of  Zouave  skirmishers  could  hardly  be  more  distracting, 
or  more  fatal  to  any  sense  of  repose  and  security.  And  like 
the  '  small  provocations  of  a  bitter  tongue,'  the  longer  they 
continue,  and  the  oftener  they  are  repeated,  the  more  intolera- 
ble they  become !  It  is  hardly  fair,  then,  in  Eastern  travelers, 
to  suppress,  as  they  almost  invariably  do,  any  reference  to  this 
greatest  of  small  miseries.  With  the  exception  of  enlarged 
livers  and  sudden  death,  no  more  grievous  drawbacks  to  an 
Eastern  climate  can  be  conceived. 

The  hour  of  departure  had  come.  The  sun  was  pouring  a 
blaze  of  light  on  tho  broad  waters  of  the  Pearl  River,  as  they 


86  THEEE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  L 

swept  in  dangerous  eddies  past  the  rocks  in  mid  stream,  and 
reflected  in  broken  lines  the  ruined  suburbs  of  Canton.  As  I 
stepped  on  board  the  steamer  which  was  to  convey  me  to 
Hongkong,  the  scene  suggested  many  thoughts  of  the  past. 

This  city,  once  the  pride  and  boast  of  the  southern  Chinese, 
was  still  in  the  occupation  of  the  '  Barbarians  ;'  while  roofless 
houses  and  crumbling  walls,  with  windows  like  eyeless  sock- 
ets, told  a  tale  of  weak  and  unavailing  resistance.  And  even 
in  that  hour  there  came  steaming  up  the  river  a  vessel,  with 
the  British  ensign  flying  at  half-mast — freighted  with  the  re- 
mains of  the  Viceroy  who  played  his  last  stake  at  Canton,  and 
lost  it.  Yeh  was  on  his  way  to  his  last  home  in  Chinese  earth. 
He  had  indeed  returned,  as  Lord  Stanley,  in  the  House,  short- 
ly before  had  intimated  he  might ;  but  only  to  be  buried.  The 
Fatalist's  creed  had  ill  served  so  persevering  a  votary  and  so 
stanch  a  believer.  During  the  long  solitary  hours  spent  in  a 
foreign  land,  did  he  ever  pass  in  review  his  Canton  administra- 
tion, with  a  doubt  or  a  question  in  his  mind  as  to  the  policy 
or  the  wisdom  of  his  course  ?  As  far  as  can  be  learned,  the 
idea  never  suggested  itself  to  him ;  but  he  was  too  evidently 
a  reserved  and  uncommunicative  man  for  those  even  nearest 
him  to  know  what  might  be  in  his  thoughts.  Certain  it  is, 
he  died  and  gave  no  sign,  expressed  no  doubt;  and  to  all  ap- 
pearance was  undisturbed  by  any  regret  or  misgiving.  Had 
he  lived  to  come  back  (as  might  well  have  been,  for  we  had 
no  longer  any  object  in  keeping  him  away),  he  would  have 
seen  such  a  changed  order  of  things  as  might  have  roused 
even  his  stolid  nature ;  and  with  all  his  conceit  of  unapproach- 
able superiority,  and  his  nil  admirari  habit,  given  rise  to  seri- 
ous reflections.  Not  that  he  would  have  admired^  but  he  could 
scarcely  have  failed  to  be  surprised.  He  might  have  passed 
incognito  through  the  streets  of  the  great  and  busy  city  which 
he  had  so  lately  governed  (trembling  often  lest  '  braves'  from 
without,  and  conspirators  within,  might  snatch  it  from  his 
grasp),  and  have  seen  how  securely  it  was  now  held  by  a  hand- 
ful of  foreign  troops.  So  easily  and  unconcernedly,  indeed, 
that  from  street  to  street,  a  couple  of  marine  police,  armed 
with  only  a  switch,  kept  perfect  order ;  and  a  small  body  of 
men  thus  employed  gave  security  to  all  the  bustling  throng 
of  shopkeepers,  street-vendors,  and  still  more  numerous  pur- 
chasers. Their  occasional  presence  was  enough ;  and  in  this 
city,  which  no  foreigner  might  pollute  with  his  presence  a  few 
short  months  before,  English  and  French  —  officers,  soldiers, 
and  civilians — on  horseback,  in  chairs,  and  on  foot — were  cir- 
culating through  the  streets  in  every  direction,  the  Chinaman 


C«AP.I.]  FACTITIOUS  HOSTILITY.  37 

scarcely  looking  up  from  his  work  to  notice  them  as  they  pass- 
ed. If  a  coolie  meets  them,  his  only  notice  is  the  removal  of 
his  broad  bamboo  hat,  that  it  may  not  incommode  the  foreign- 
er. Children  that  used,  in  all  the  suburbs,  to  be  taught  by 
their  elders  to  spit  out  terms  of  abuse,  the  gentlest  of  which 
was  '■FankweV  or '  foreign  devil,'  now  hail  the  humblest  private 
as  '  Taipan'  or  '  chief,'  and  with  outstretched  palm,  sometimes 
insinuate  that  a  '  kumshaw,'  or  gratuity  of  copper  cash,  would 
be  by  no  means  disdained.  This,  and  much  more,  he  might 
have  read,  marked,  and  inwardly  digested.  A  goodly  and  a 
pleasant  change  for  the  better,  no  one  can  doubt,  whatever  di- 
versity of  opinion  may  have  existed  as  to  the  means  by  which 
it  was  brought  about. 

Clear  proof  indeed  was  furnished,  by  after  events,  that  the 
long-nurtured  and  often-invoked  hostility  of  the  Cantonese  was 
entirely  of  factitious  growth,  due  exclusively  to  the  machina- 
tions of  the  Mandarins,  as  a  part  of  the  policy  of  the  Court  at 
Pekin.  More  recent  occurrences  had  moreover  shown  that 
the  high  officials  on  the  spot  would,  without  scruple  or  hesita- 
tion, venture  to  repeal,  within  their  province,  the  ancient  and 
most  time-honored  laws  of  the  empire — such  as  the  law  pro- 
hibiting emigration — whenever  a  necessity  for  such  action  be- 
came apparent.  Thus  the  admission  of  foreigners  into  the  city 
of  Canton,  the  ever-recurring  qucestio  vexata,  might  at  any  time 
have  been  granted  at  the  option  of  the  successive  Viceroys, 
from  Keying  to  Yeh,  and  upon  their  own  authority,  if  they  had 
chosen — all  their  protestations  '  to  the  contrary  notwithstand- 
ing.' And  if  this  had  been  done,  Yeh,  even  at  the  last  hour, 
might  have  averted  the  catastrophe  which  precipitated  him 
from  his  Viceroyalty,  and  sent  him  a  prisoner  to  die  in  the 
hated  foreigner's  land.  Governor  Peihkwei,  Yeh's  successor, 
issued,  a  short  time  before  my  departure,  a  proclamation  legal- 
izing the  emigration  of  all  Chinese  willing  to  enter  into  labor 
contracts  for  foreign  colonies — and  the  whole  history  of  this 
important  step  was  very  instructive,  both  as  regarded  the  past 
and  the  future.  The  atrocities  perpetrated  by  the  Chinese 
crimps  in  kidnapping  by  fraud  and  violence  the  unwary,  with 
a  view  to  secure  the  bonus  offered  by  shippers,  under  ^foreign 
flags  (not  British,  I  am  glad  to  say),  had  at  last  excited  in  the 
whole  population  such  a  feeling  of  alarm  and  exasperation  as 
to  threaten  the  personal  security  of  the  officials,  hitherto  so  su- 
pine, and  endanger  the  peace  of  the  place  by  an  uprising  of 
the  populace.  Slomentary  measures  were  taken,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  the  allies,  to  seize  certain  receiving  vessels ;  but  the 
true  remedy,  provided  under  good  advice  by  the  Chinese  high 


38  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap,  t 

authorities,  was  a  proclamation  removing  at  once  the  ban  of 
illegality  on  emigration,  which  served  as  a  pretext  for  these 
enormities. 

So,  it  may  be  inferred,  they  could  and  would  have  removed 
the  ban  on  our  entrance  into  Canton,  at  any  time  during  the 
fifteen  preceding  years,  if  steps  had  been  taken  to  make  them 
understand  that  we  were  determined  it  should  be  removed,  in 
accordance  with  treaties,  and  that  the  alternative  was  certain 
capture  and  military  occupation  of  the  city — thus  shifting  the 
pressure  and  the  vexation  from  the  foreigners'  to  the  Manda- 
rins' shoulders.  However,  as  regards  Canton,  the  knowledge 
came  too  late,  either  to  save  us  the  expense  of  costly  arma- 
ments, or  them  a  great  destruction  of  property. 

Let  us  hope  permanent  good  has  come  of  so  much  tempo- 
rary evil ; — and  of  this  there  was  at  least  some  promise  when 
I  took  my  departure.  Even  as  regarded  intercourse  with  the 
authorities,  there  was  little  evidence  of  ill  blood.  Perhaps  the 
facility  for  direct  and  personal  intercourse  had  done  something 
to  remove  both  the  prejudices  born  of  long  isolation,  and  the 
enmity  naturally  arising  from  recent  collision.  A  very  unu- 
sual demonstration  indicative  of  changed  sentiments  was  wit- 
nessed on  my  leaving  Canton.  When  the  steamer  passed  the 
Custom-house,  on  its  way  down  the  river,  a  salute  was  fired  by 
the  Chinese  authorities,  with  a  display  of  fireworks  and  crack- 
ers in  continuation  (as  is  their  custom  when  they  wish  to  do 
honor),  telling  the  surrounding  population  of  the  new  order  of 
things  a  British  Consul  left  behind  him.  A  friendly  farewell 
from  one  of  the  highest  ofiicers  of  the  province,  and  the  Chief 
Superintendent  of  Maritime  Customs,  was,  indeed,  a  novel  trait ; 
— and,  that  nothing  might  be  wanting,  he  had  previously  sent 
an  officer  on  board,  with  his  card,  to  take  a  ceremonious  leave, 
and  announce  the  intended  salute.  Three  years  ago,  this  same 
official  could  not  be  approached  by  a  Foreign  consul; — and 
when  an  official  letter  might  be  answered,  if  at  all,  was  a  doubt- 
ful question !  A  great  step  in  the  way  of  progress  and  per- 
manent friendly  intercourse  had  undoubtedly  been  taken,  and 
it  will  be  our  own  fault,  I  think,  if  that  which  has  once  been 
gained  is  ever  entirely  lost. 

The  personal  intercourse  I  had  with  the  Hoppo,  and  other 
authorities,  on  my  return  from  Europe,  after  the  capture  of  the 
city,  had  been  frequent  and  satisfactory.  If  a  nuisance  had  to 
be  abated  on  the  Honan  side  of  the  river  (where  the  foreign- 
ers were  located  after  the  destruction  of  the  factories),  gam- 
bling-shops to  be  closed,  or  the  course  of  a  canal  which  had 
been  built  over  and  made  into  a  filthy  sewer  to  be  restored, 


Chap. I.J  A  "MISTAKE."— COOLNESS.  $0 

it  required  but  a  request,  and  it  was  done  at  once,  where  for- 
merly all  the  power  of  Great  Britain  could  not  have  secured 
attention.  With  the  Hoppo  (the  Chief  of  the  Customs),  not- 
withstanding many  difficulties,  and  continued  evasion  of  duties 
by  Foreigners  and  Chmese  in  collusion,  something  like  cordial 
relations  existed;  not  very  sincere,  perhaps  —  not  without  a 
shade  of  duplicity,  and  the  spirit  which  bends  to  circumstances ; 
— but  we  have  no  right  to  expect  miracles  to  be  wrought  in 
our  favor  in  China,  any  more  than  elsewhere. 

And  now  we  pass  the  Barrier  forts,  with  their  crumbled 
bastions  and  dismantled  walls,  recalling  the  solution  of  a  little 
'difficulty'  with  the  Americans,  not  with  us,  and  one  which 
carried  its  lesson  also  and  a  moral  with  it.  While  Yeh  had 
his  hands  full  enough,  one  would  have  thought,  with  the  Brit- 
ish, his  officers,  in  pure  wantonness  or  stupidity,  one  day  amused 
themselves  by  practicing  with  round  shot  at  the  American 
Commodore's  boats,  as  they  passed  with  their  flag  flying.  To 
remonstrance  and  demand  for  explanation  and  apology  noth- 
ing but  Chinese  verbiage  could  be  obtained  ; — until  the  Amer- 
ican commander's  patience  being  exhausted,  he  laid  his  ship's 
broadside  to  the  batteries  and  dismantled  them.  Then  only 
did  Yeh,  that  able,  intelligent,  and  treaty-loving  official,  find 
out  that  his  people  '  had  made  a  mistake ;'  and,  with  the  min- 
gled inconsistency  and  insolence  which  only  a  Chinese  manda- 
rin ever  carried  to  such  perfection,  he  closed  his  apology  by 
coolly  proposing  that  the  Commodore  would  send  the  '  flag  of 
his  nation,  that  in  future  the  Chinese  officers  might  know  and 
be  able  to  recognize  it.'  This,  after  half  a  century's  intenia- 
tional  intercourse !  What  could  diplomacy  do  with  such  offi- 
cials as  these  ? — authorities  which  never  yielded  to  argument 
until  enforced  by  blows,  and  obstinately  turned  a  deaf  ear  to 
all  remonstrances — not  backed  by  the  logic  of  the  sword. 

From  the  Bogue  forts  to  Hongkong  is  but  four  hours'  steam- 
ing, and  the  '  Williamette'  cleverly  threads  her  way  through  a 
very  maze  of  boats  and  shipping  without  collision  or  accident ; 
her  great  bell  clanging  a  deafening  Marning  to  the  market  and 
shore  boats,  which  evmce  the  most  perverse  tendency  to  cross 
the  bows  of  a  steamer,  with  scarce  a  yard  to  spare.  How  they 
escape  seems  a  mystery, but  they  do  escape  generally ;  and  the 
anchor  finally  brings  her  up  at  her  berth,  amidst  a  rush  of '  San- 
pans'  and  boats  of  all  sizes  and  descriptions ; — and  a  mighty 
clamor  of  voices,  in  which  the  shrill  pipes  of  the  women  drown 
the  bass  tones  of  their  male  competitors,  and  set  at  defiance  all 
efforts  of  the  men  to  be  heard  above  them.  To  get  into  one 
of  these  hundred  Saopans  with  all  your  belongings  is  Xt\x\j  a 


40 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  I. 


service  of  danger  and  a  trial  of  nerve.  Half  a  dozen  sharp 
prows  are  edged  in  contact  with  tlie  companion-ladder — or 
thereabouts.  You  descend,  and  a  moment's  indecision  is 
enough  to  cost  you  a  ducking,  if  not  your  life.  Nothing  but 
a  determined  spring  into  one  can  save  you ;  happy  even  then 
if  no  treacherous  siren,  with  a  grasp  of  iron,  seek  to  turn  you 
into  her  own  which  lies  to  the  right  or  to  the  left,  or  some 
laggard,  with  a  desperate  thrust,  does  not  send  your  selected 
boat  six  y.ards  away,  without  exactly  filling  up  the  vacant  space 
over  which  you  see  yourself  taking  a  flying  leap.  These  perils 
safely  passed,  you  have  then  time  to  look  and  see  what  has  be- 
come of  your  '  boy' — a  corruption,  I  believe,  of  the  Indian  call 
for  a  servant — and,  more  important  still,  your  bag  and  trunk. 
Most  probably  you  have  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  him  with 
one  foot  still  on  the  ladder,  and  the  other  in  the  air,  vainly 


""'ti^r^S^ 


HONGKONa. 


seeking  the  boat  beneath ;  while  your  boxes  are  passing  over 
his  head  into  another,  and  your  bag,  like  the  last  horse  in  a 
race,  is  '  nowhere.'  As,  however,  the  same  scene  of  utter  con- 
fusion and  despair  takes  place  at  least  ten  times  every  day,  and 
travelers  do,  for  the  most  part,  reach  the  shore  in  safety,  while 
*  boys'  and  trunks  tui-n  up  after  all,  you  resign  yourself  to  Prov- 
idence, take  the  rudder  and  steer  to  the  shore,  where  the  best 


Chap,  I.]  HONGKONG.  41 

of  hospitality,  or  the  worst  of  hotel  accommodation,  awaits 
you  ;  with  a  third  chance  of  a  room  in  the  club-house,  not  so 
good  as  the  first,  nor  giiite  so  bad  as  the  second. 

I  passed  several  days  in  Hongkong  before  all  was  ready  for 
a  final  departure.  This  St.  Helena  of  the  China  Seas,  then,  as 
now,  with  its  motley  population,  its  bad  repute,  and  incongru- 
ous pretensions, '  progresses,'  as  the  Americans  say,  in  a  very 
wonderful  way !  Its  first  governors  would  hardly  know  it,  al- 
though the  general  features  are  the  same  as  when  they  held 
the  reins.  When  I  returned  three  years  later,  on  my  way 
homeward,  progress  still  was  the  only  change.  More  houses 
and  more  streets  were  there  ;  more  hill  and  rock  had  been  cut 
away  or  blasted,  to  make  room.  Nature,  and  the  inbred  ener- 
gy of  the  English  race  combined,  have  made  Hongkong  a  won- 
der to  all  other  nations.  As  I  took  my  early  walk  the  morn- 
ing after  my  arrival,  the  sun,  through  heavy  banks  of  cloud  and 
mist,  was  struggling  hard  to  light  up  the  bay,  the  opposite 
shores  of  which  were  still  shrouded  by  an  impenetrable  veil. 
Ships  of  many  nations,  and  junks  of  every  size  and  description, 
were  shaking  out  their  sails  to  dry — before  another  drenching 
rain  might  come  down.  But,  fair  weather  or  foul,  this  Bay  of 
Hongkong,  one  of  the  finest  in  the  world,  is  always  pictur- 
esque. Landlocked  with  bold  rocks  and  swelling  hills,  the  na- 
vies of  every  European  power  might  safely  ride  at  anchor. 
Full  of  life  and  movement,  too,  from  the  shipping  whi(rh  crowds 
its  waters,  the  scene  is  one  of  great  attraction  to  residents  and 
casual  visitors  alike.  The  daybreak  gun  wakens  up  all  early 
risers ',  the  loud-screaming  whistles,  and  scarce  less  discordant 
bells  of  the  river  steamers,  soon  after  begin  the  business  of  the 
day,  and  keep  up  an  incessant  alarm  from  seven  in  the  morning 
to  eight  or  nine  o'clock,  and  again  from  four  in  the  afternoon 
until  long  after  dark,  on  their  return  from  Canton  or  Macao. 
The  snorting  and  puffing  of  gunboats  diversify  the  sounds, 
while  from  the  shore  and  the  streets  a  busy  hum  of  cries,  and 
sounds  indescribable  and  untranslatable,  tell  the  drowsy  stran- 
ger that  a  city  in  the  tropics  has  leaped  into  life  and  activity 
before  the  sun  attains  his  scorching  power.  If  he  turns  out 
for  an  early  walk  or  ride,  as  most  Anglo  -  Easterns  do,  and 
bends  his  steps  upward  to  the  higher  grounds,  he  will  find  the 
convolvulus  spreading  its  beautiful  flowers  for  the  fresh  breath 
of  dawn,  creepers  of  wild  luxuriance  covering  each  wall  and 
bank ;  and,  looking  seaward,  a  whole  series  of  bays  lie  at  his 
feet,  stretching  away  into  the  distance.  Market-boats,  laden 
with  provisions  from  the  main  land,  with  their  richly-colored 
saili  of  matting,  and  many  picturesque  forms,  are  crowding 


42  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAt»AN.  [CnAi'.t. 

into  the  harbor.  Square-rigged  ships  are  pressing  all  sail  to 
gain  the  long-desired  haven ;  while  others  are  unmooring,  to 
proceed  to  the  several  ports  with  their  outward  cargo.  Ships 
of  war,  trading  junks,  merchant  craft  from  every  country,  all 
are  here  to  bear  testimony  to  the  activity  and  importance  of 
the  trade  Avhich,  in  some  way  or  other,  finds  in  Hongkong  a 
connecting  link.  Native  craft  in  numbers  from  the  adjoining 
coast,  each  differing  in  shape  and  color,  according  to  the  port, 
crowd  the  anchorage.  The  great  bulky  Shantung  junk,  laden 
with  peas  and  beans ;  the  Shanghae  hulk,  with  its  gaudy  colors 
and  mythic  eagle  on  the  stern,  but  little  differing  in  exterior ; 
and  the  long  low  craft  of  Ningpo,  all  are  there.  Hainan,  and 
even  Siara  and  Singapore,  each  has  its  type.  A  Chinese  sailor 
will  distinguish  wheie  they  come  from  by  differences  of  shape 
and  rigging,  paint  and  decoration,  without  difficulty ;  and,  if 
he  be  honest,  may  also  tell  you  where  stout-built  junks  are  ly- 
ing undisturbed,  with  a  pirate  crew,  and  nearly  fitted  out  with 
fresh  supplies  of  guns  and  powder.  Only  I  do  not  recom- 
mend any  one  to  trust  him  too  implicitly ;  for  he  may  be  one 
of  the  pirate  crew  himself,  and  will  send  you  on  a  wrong  scent, 
to  the  damage  of  some  honest  trader  whom  he  wishes  to  ruin ; 
— or  simply  to  damage  you,  and  prevent  the  Hongkong  au- 
thorities pursuing  his  fellows  on  information  given,  by  letting 
you  into  a  few  deplorable  mistakes — mares'  net^ts — of  which 
Mr.  Chisholra  Anstey  has  long  since  had  his  say  in  Hongkong 
and  elsewhere.  With  a  large  harbor  full  of  junks  from  every 
sea-port  and  island  between  Shantung  and  Singapore,  Siam, 
Java,  and  the  Philippines  ;  with  90,000  Chinese  and  Macden- 
ses  (as  the  mixed  Portuguese  population  of  the  neighboring 
peninsula  of  Macao  are  usually  termed)  on  shore,  it  is  not  easy 
for  the  authorities  and  police  to  put  their  hands  upon  all  the 
rogues,  or  pirate  craft  either,  that  take  shelter  beneath  the 
sure  protection  of  the  British  flag,  were  they  the  best  and 
most  honest  that  ever  wielded  colonial  power.  The  native 
population  from  the  main  land  have  made  this  barren  rock 
their  home,  building  a  large  Chinese  town,  which  spreads  along 
the  western  shore,  and  skirts  the  bay,  creeping  and  scrambling 
upward  and  upward  over  the  hillside,  along  the  face  of  the  ra- 
vines, and  high  above  the  town  beneath.  Nest  on  nest  of 
houses  elbow  each  other  in  the  most  determined  way,  until 
they  dispute  the  higher  levels  with  the  merchant  princes  of 
the  colony,  and  seem  to  aim  at  crowning  the  Victoria  peak  it- 
self, sufficiently  attesting  the  untiring  industry,  perseverance, 
and  enterprise  too^when  in  pursuit  of  their  own  gain — of 
these  sons  of  Ham. 


Chap.  I.]  SECRET  OF  PROSPERITY.  43 

Twenty  years  have  not  yet  passed  over  our  heads  since  En- 
gland first  took  possession  of  this  pirate  haunt,  and  all  its  prop- 
erties of  unlimited  granite  and  bare  hills ;  and  now  it  is  the 
great  centre  of  a  Chinese  coasting  trade,  to  feed  which  num- 
berless ships  come  laden  with  produce,  from  India,  Siam,  and 
the  Philippines,  from  Batavia  and  Singapore,  with  the  col- 
lected tribute  of  the  Malayan  Archipelago.  These  are  chiefly 
for  transhipment  or  dispatch  to  other  markets ;  while  from  En- 
gland, New  York,  and  San  Francisco,  some  of  the  finest  clip- 
pers of  both  countries  come  filled  with  manufactured  goods 
and  American  'notions.'  Even  New  Zealand  and  Australia 
are  contributors  of  the  required  supplies,  seeking  tea  in  ex- 
change, for  their  own  wants.  It  has  become  the  postal  and 
financial  terminus,  or  great  centre,  whence  all  the  directing 
wires  of  the  European,  Indian,  and  American  trade  with  China 
receive  their  impulse  from  the  heads  of  firms  located  in  the 
colony,  determining  the  ultimate  destination  of  all  the  ships 
and  cargoes  that  enter  or  leave  the  China  seas.  What  is  the 
secret  of  this  sudden  and  enormous  growth  in  population  and 
in  trading  importance  of  a  barren  rock  ?  This  must  be  among 
the  first  questions  of  a  stranger.  Hongkong  itself,  he  sees  at 
a  glance,  produces  nothing  but  granite  boulders  and  the  thin- 
nest scrub,  beneath  the  hottest  of  suns,  and  least  healthy  of 
climates.  The  city  of  Victoria,  with  its  Cathedral  and  Episco- 
pal palace,  its  Government  House,  and  Supreme  Court,  with 
all  its  Merchants'  palatial  houses,  is  perhaps  the  very  last  spot, 
on  all  the  coast  of  China,  where  a  sensible  man  would  have 
thought  of  placing  house  or  home,  if  the  choice  had  been  left 
to  himself.  Victoria  Peak  rises  1700  feet  above  the  level  of 
the  sea,  and  stretches  its  solid  bulk  across  the  whole  line  of 
the  city,  effectually  shutting  out  the  southwest  breeze,  and 
all  the  cool  air  to  be  had  during  six  months  of  a  most  oppress- 
ive summer,  when  every  one  gasps  for  want  of  that  needful 
aliment.  From  this  arid  rock  many  go  home  sick  every  year, 
with  spleens  much  larger  than  their  fortunes ;  and  not  a  few 
remain,  to  have  their  bones  laid  in  six  feet  of  Chinese  earth,  in 
the  '  Happy  Valley,'  where  an  English  cemetery  has  been  lo- 
cated. Yet  the  neighboring  main  land  has  good  and  commo- 
dious harbors,  far  nearer  to  the  producing  markets  and  the 
native  purchasers  of  foreign  goods ;  and  apparently,  in  every 
respect,  better  fitted  for  trade  than  Hongkong.  But,  despite 
all  this,  and  more  that  might  be  said  to  its  disadvantage,  trade, 
from  countries  the  most  distant,  converges  here,  to  a  great 
centre  of  attraction — as  though  its  hills  and  granite  rocks 
were  loadstone,  and  ships  must  needs  be  drawn  within  its 


44  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  I. 

landlocked  bay.    The  seci-et  of  its  seemiag  magnetic  power  is 
soon  told,  however. 

Security  to  life  and  property  is  the  first  and  broadest  found- 
ation of  such  prosj)erity ;  a  magnificent  bay,  of  easy  access,  the 
second  condition ;  and  the  absence  of  all  custom-houses,  with 
proximity  to  Chinese  ports,  where  these  do  exist,  in  more  or 
less  oppressive  form,  the  third.  And  these  taken  together,  fur- 
nish, I  conceive,  a  very  full  solution  of  the  problem.  Given  a 
barren  rock,  in  the  near  vicinity  of  a  wealthy  empire  cursed 
with  a  corrupt  administration,  how  shall  the  trade  of  the  main 
land  be  made  to  overflow  to  the  islet  ?  In  the  first  place,  to 
it  an  enterprising  and  industrial  population  can  bring  their 
produce  from  the  whole  sea-board  of  the  main  land,  on  advan- 
tageous terms  of  export  with  their  own  people,  as  not  declared 
for  foreign  market ;  and  from  it  run  cargoes  of  return  goods, 
with  like  exemption  from  import  duties.  Thus  it  happens  that 
Hongkong,  though  promoting  in  a  certain  subsidiary  way  for- 
eign trade  with  China  —  in  the  only  way  originally  contem- 
plated when  it  was  ceded  to  Great  Britain  by  treaty — really 
owes  its  wondrous  growth  and  prosperity  as  a  colony  to  other 
causes ;  and  mainly  to  a  vast  trade  with  the  whole  sea-board 
of  China,  which,  for  the  most  part,  is  in  the  hands  of  the  Chi- 
nese themselves.  And  this,  if  not  contraband  trade,  in  so  far 
as  our  merchants  personally  are  concerned,  is  at  least  carried 
on  and  only  flourishes  under  conditions  of  exemption  from  du- 
ties and  all  custom-house  regulations,  contrary  to  the  law  of 
China.  From  the  island,  as  a  great  depot  of  produce  in  de- 
mand on  the  main  land,  the  Chinese  traders  can  take  their  opi- 
um, long-cloths,  yarns,  and  woolens,  free  of  all  duty,  with  the 
chance  of  laying  them  down  near  the  points  of  consumption, 
either  for  nothing,  or  a  small  bribe  to  the  custom-house  offi- 
cials, often  on  a  previously-arranged  scale.  Half  a  loaf  being 
proverbially  better  than  no  bread,  and  the  latter  being  the  al- 
ternative presented  to  the  custom-house  authorities  by  the 
wretched  inadequacy  of  their  pay — if,  steadfast  to  their  duty, 
they  exact  the  full  dues  at  any  one  point — they  adopt  this  mode 
of  redressing  the  wrong.  This  arrangement,  by  which  they 
supplement  their  salaries,  and  encourage  trade  at  the  expense 
of  the  revenue,  is  pretty  well  established  all  over  the  empire. 
In  like  manner,  upon  the  same  principle,  the  natives  can  bring 
to  Hongkong  yrom  the  main  land  their  own  produce  for  sale 
— their  Rhubarb,  Sugar,  Camphor,  Cassia,  and  sundry  other 
articles  ;  and  to  Macao  their  Tea,  at  a  better  price  than  at  the 
consular  ports,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  succeed  in  es- 
caping duty,  either  wholly  or  in  part,  on  their  export. 


Chap.  I.] 


MACAO  AND  HONGKONG. 


45 


There  is,  perhaps,  no  chapter  more  curious  in  the  history  of 
nations  than  the  chapter  of  bhuiders  and  their  results.  It  is 
related  of  the  Marechal  de  Castries,  one  of  the  men  said  to 
have  sought  all  his  life  to  fix  fortune  by  deep  and  learned  com- 
binations, that  at  the  end  of  his  career,  he  confessed  with  rare 
candor,  to  some  one  inquiring  the  secret  of  his  uniform  success, 
'  he  owed  much  to  accident  and  opportunity,  and  not  a  little 
to  blunders !'  Certainly  the  history  of  China  in  these  matters, 
and  of  Macao  and  Hongkong,  the  two  rival  European  settle- 
ments on  the  borders  of  China,  the  one  occupied  by  the  Portu- 
guese more  than  two  centuries,  and  Hongkong  only  some  two 
decades  by  ourselves,  furnish  striking  illustrations.    To  look 


at  Macao,  as  the  steamer  heads  into  its  picturesque  bay,  see  its 
imposing  buildings,  its  convents  and  cathedrals,  its  praya  and 
its  batteries,  with  green  hills  and  tree-embowered  villas,  no 
one  would  guess  that  this  was  the  home  of  poverty  and  long- 
departed  prosperity — where  bankrupt  aliens  find  a  refuge,  and 
a  mongrel  race  of  Portuguese,  Chinese,  and  Africans  from  Goa, 
all  commingled,  swarm,  and  breed,  and  live — God  only  knows 
how !  Once  great  and  wealthy  (built  up  chiefly  with  the  gold 
and  the  spoils  of  Japan),  in  the  pride  of  triumphant  rivalry 
with  Great  Britain  in  her  Eastern  trade,  then  only  in  its  infan- 
cy, it  had  long  fallen  into  the  sere  and  yellow  leaf  of  a  gradual 


46  TtlREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  1. 

decay,  when  our  first  war  with  China  gave  one  of  those  chances 
which — to  nations  as  to  individuals — seldom  come  more  than 
once  in  a  cycle,  of  seizing  fortune  in  its  passage,  and  emerging 
from  poverty  to  wealth,  had  those  who  governed  only  been 
gifted  with  sufficient  prescience  to  see  their  opportunity.  They 
had  but  to  declare  it  a  Free  port,  and  shake  off  the  evil  spell 
of  mandarin  rule,  to  become  the  great  emporium  of  Western 
trade — become  what  Hongkong  now  is.  It  may,  at  all  events, 
admit  of  question,  if  this  bold  and  vigorous  step  had  been  taken 
at  the  right  moment,  whether,  notwithstanding  all  the  disad- 
vantages of  a  shallow  bay  and  bad  anchorage  attaching  to 
Macao,  the  new  colony  of  Hongkong  would  ever  have  been 
adopted  as  the  head-quarters  of  British  houses.  With  its  im- 
practicable hills,  its  sultry  and  unhealthy  atmosphere,  its  in- 
convenient distance  from  the  main  land,  and  the  rivers  which 
form  the  great  lines  of  traffic  between  the  interior  and  the 
coast,  nothing  could  be  less  inviting.  It  had,  originally,  but 
one  recommendation,  in  the  natural  advantage  of  a  tine  bay. 
But  to  this  the  British  Government  could  attach  freedom  from 
all  the  petty  worry  and  vexatious  exactions  of  corruption — in 
the  hybrid  form  of  a  Portuguese  colony,  crossed  by  a  Chinese 
custom  •  house.  And  above  all,  perhaps,  security  to  life  and 
property,  only  to  be  found  in  those  latitudes  under  the  British 
flag.  We  were  very  slow,  however,  as  is  our  wont,  to  make 
up  our  minds.  Our  merchants  did  not  move ;  and  an  offer 
was  even  made  to  the  Portuguese  Government  to  purchase  their 
right  of  possession  of  Macao,  such  as  it  was,  under  Chinese 
rule.  Fortunately  for  us,  in  some  respects  at  least,  the  pride 
of  Portugal  refused  to  cede  this  last  poor  relic  of  former  great- 
ness ;  and  while  we  were  thus  groping  our  way,  they  missed 
the  only  chance  in  a  century  of  bringing  back  trade  and  wealth 
to  their  starving  colony,  by  declaring  it  a  free  port,  and  ridding 
themselves  of  the  incubus  of  a  Chinese  custom-house.  With 
a  curious  inconsistency,  they  took  this  very  step,  and  ejected 
the  Chinese  officials  when  it  was  too  late  by  ten  years  to  profit 
them ;  and  the  bold  step  only  cost  the  Governor  his  life,  with- 
out any  corresponding  advantage  to  his  country.*     It  seems 

*  Captain  Amaral,  the  Governor  here  alluded  to,  was  a  distinguished  naval 
officer,  who  fell  a  victim  to  his  zeal  for  the  improvement  of  the  colony,  and 
its  emancipation  from  Chinese  rule.  He  was  assassinated  in  open  day,  while 
riding  out,  by  a  band  of  Chinese,  and  his  head  was  can-ied  off  to  the  Chinese 
authorities,  by  whom  it  was  carefully  preserved  in  pickle ;  and  only  delivered 
up  to  the  Portuguese  some  weeks  later,  after  an  enormous  amount  of  hard 
swearing.  This  act  of  atrocity,  so  well  illustrating  the  principle  on  which 
the  Chinese  rulers  would  fain  have  regulated  their  dealings  with  foreigners, 
was  a  fit  sequent  to  the  torture  and  murder  of  six  English  clerks  at  Whang- 


Chap.  I.]  MACAO  AND  HONGKONG.  0 

to  be  as  unfortunate  for  a  man  to  arrive  too  late  as  too  early, 
on  the  world's  stage,  when  he  has  a  part  to  play.  Ten  years 
earlier  he  might  have  changed  the  destiny  of  the  two  colonies ; 
coming  too  late,  he  only  sacrificed  himself  and  changed  noth- 
ing. Millions  of  dollars  had  then  been  expended  on  the  sun- 
baked and  sterile  hills  of  Hongkong — by  the  Government,  in 
roads,  and  barracks,  and  public  offices ;  by  our  own  merchants 
and  those  of  other  nations,  in  houses  and  godowns — driven  at 
last  to  this  expensive  alternative  by  the  vexatious  impediments 
to  which  their  trade  was  exposed  in  Macao,  under  the  joint 
Chinese  and  Portuguese  rule.  Trade  had  irrevocably  followed 
the  heads  and  the  purses  which  gave  it  vitality ;  and  not  even 
the  pleasant  hills  and  green  shade  of  Macao,  nor  its  fresher 
breezes,  could  ever  while  them  back  again. 

It  is  but  a  four  hours'  passage  from  Hongkong  to  Macao, 
and  a  passenger  lands  on  the  praya,  while  the  convent  bells 
fill  the  air  with  their  chimes,  feeling  as  though  he  had  traversed 
a  whole  hemisphere  in  that  short  space — passed  into  another 
climate,  and  suddenly  found  himself  in  an  old  watering-place 
on  the  coast  of  Portugal  in  the  year  1600! 

Here  dark -tinted  women  in  their  black  Mantos  saunter 
through  the  streets,  as  to  this  day  they  saunter  in  the  provin- 
cial towns  of  Portugal.  The  bright  -  colored  kerchief  round 
the  head,  and  swarthy  skins,  meeting  you  at  every  step,  tell  of 
long  connection  with  Goa  and  African  possessions.  Dwarfed 
children  of  all  hues  under  the  sun,  and  lazy-looking  monks,  or 
sable-i'obed  padres,  with  portentous  shovel  hats,  either  drone 
through  the  half  deserted  streets  (become  too  large  for  its  pop- 
ulation where  the  Chinese  do  not  fill  up  the  space),  or  help  to 
swell  some  monkish  procession,  wending  its  way  to  the  cathe- 
dral, precisely  as  did  Spaniards  and  Portuguese  alike  in  by- 
gone centuries  (when  Auto-da-Fe's  were  more  in  vogue),  and 
presenting  the  same  pictures  and  groups  as  may  still  be  seen 
m  the  land  of  their  birth.  '  Coelum  non  animam  mutant'  is  in- 
deed specially  true  in  this  Portuguese  colony. 

cha-kee,  a  villafre  near  Canton,  only  a  short  time  before.  The  present  Gor- 
emor  of  Macao,  Captain  Guiniaraes,  a  naval  officer  also,  of  great  ability  and 
energy,  has  known  how  to  draw  all  the  profit  that  was  possible  from  the 
emancipation  from  Chinese  rule  which  his  predecessor  had  effected  at  the 
cost  of  his  life.  Aided  by  the  unsettled  state  of  the  whole  province,  which 
induced  the  Chinese  to  flock  to  the  colony  for  security,  the  revenue  so  won- 
derfully improved,  that  a  surplus  has  even  been  remitted  to  the  mother  coun- 
try —  very  much  to  its  surprise,  it  must  be  imagined  :  Portuguese  colonies, 
like  our  own,  being  chiefly  known  as  sources  of  expenditure  —  draining  the 
home  exchequer  instead  of  feeding  it !  Holland  and  Sjiain  alone  seom  to 
have  preserved  the  art  of  reversing  the  process,  and  making  their  colonies /wy. 


48  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  I. 

The  Chinese  Government,  there  is  little  doubt,  has  viewed 
with  jealousy  and  anger  the  great  development  of  commerce, 
and  rapid  increase  of  population,  recruited  as  it  has  been  from 
their  own  subjects.  The  close  proximity  of  two  foreign  colo- 
nies and  free  ports  must  of  necessity  be  a  source  of  vexation 
and  even  of  injury ;  for  both  piracy  and  frauds  on  the  revenue 
ai*e  unquestionably  stimulated  and  fostered  by  the  facilities 
such  ports  afford.  We  can  not  be  surprised,  therefore,  if  a  gov- 
ernment like  that  of  China  should  see  in  this  a  ground  of  re- 
proach, and  consider  us  responsible,  as  the  intentional  promo- 
ters of  disorder  and  violence.  The  only  remedy,  however,  is 
obviously  to  be  found,  not  so  much  in  any  change  in  the  foi'- 
eign  colony,  as  in  greater  security  to  life  and  property  on  the 
main  land,  and  an  improved  custom-house.  The  absence  of  the 
one  drives  homeless  men  to  the  high  seas  for  plunder ;  and  a 
wretchedly  administered  custom  -  house,  with  venal  officials, 
quite  as  certainly  develops  smuggling.  One  can  only  rejoice, 
therefore,  to  see  that  the  Chinese  are  at  last  turning  their  at- 
tention to  these,  with  a  seemingly  right  appreciation  of  their 
importance,  and  to  the  means  by  which  improvement  is  most 
certainly  to  be  effected.  In  seeking  to  organize  an  efficient 
administration  of  customs  on  land  on  a  imiform  system,  and 
a  fleet  of  gunboats  at  sea,  with  the  assistance  of  foreign  offi- 
cers, they  are  doing  much.  If  they  succeed  in  thus  introdu- 
cing such  elements  of  honesty,  courage,  and  efficiency  as  their 
own  service  can  not  supply,  a  rapid  and  decisive  improvement 
in  both  directions  must  take  place. 

The  vigor,  honesty,  and  intelligence  they  find  it  so  difficult 
to  secure  among  their  own  people  may  certainly  be  found 
among  foreigners,  if  rightly  set  about.  Time  will  show  with 
what  success  their  present  effbrts  may  be  attended  ;  but  it  is 
impossible  not  to  desire  that  it  may  be  full  and  complete.  In 
that  direction  lies  their  only  hope  of  providing  an  effective 
remedy  for  a  great  and  increasing  evil.  Under  the  present 
order  of  things,  even  Macao  has  repaired  her  tattered  vest- 
ments, sole  legacy  of  two  hundred  years  of  poverty ;  and  Hong- 
kong has  made  the  fortune  of  many  of  its  denizens  in  less  than 
twenty  years.  Under  a  better  regime  in  China,  both  colonies 
would  possibly  have  to  content  themselves  with  more  legiti- 
mate gains,  and,  it  may  be,  smaller  revenues  and  lessened  im- 
portance. But,  though  Macao  should  have  to  fall  back  upon 
lentils  and  soup  maigre  six  days  in  the  week,  as  of  old,  and 
Hongkong  see  fewer  ships  in  her  harbor,  with  corresponding 
diminution  of  the  Chinese  population  and  revenue,  it  is  well 
that  the  Chinese  should  succeed  in  their  efforts  at  reorganiza- 


Chap.  I.]  COLLECTION  OF  REVENUE.  49 

tion.     It  would  be  well — even  oq  the  most  selfish  view  of  our 
own  interests. 

In  getting  its  legitimate  dues  from  foreign  trade,  which  the 
Government  received  until  recently  at  Shanghae  alone,  under 
a  system  of  foreign  inspection  first  organized  during  ray  resi- 
dence there  in  1854,  the  Chinese  Government  would  obtain 
a  direct  and  increasing  interest  in  its  development  and  pros- 
perity, besides  the  means  of  establishing  a  better  government 
over  the  country,  without  which  all  trade  is  Ukely  to  be  de- 
stroyed by  a  general  disorganization.  They  may  farther  learn 
by  success  a  lesson  they  much  need,  namely,  that  to  secure 
good  and  honest  service.  States,  as  well  as  individuals,  must 
deal  fairly  with  their  servants,  and  give  adequate  salaries. 
Though  last,  not  least  among  the  benefits  to  be  derived,  the 
foreign  merchant  would  find  his  trade  could  be  carried  on  in 
the  Chinese  markets  with  honesty,  and  on  principles  of  fairness 
to  all,  without  any  sacrifice  either  of  principle  or  capital,  such 
as  must  otherwise  be  inevitable  where  a  vicious  and  lax  ad- 
ministration of  customs  exists.  There  are  many  who  contend 
against  the  organization  of  a  system  for  the  efiicient  collection 
of  customs  by  the  Chinese  Government,  with  the  aid  of  foreign 
inspectors  of  their  own  appointment,  on  the  alleged  ground 
that  it  is  no  business  of  ours ;  and  that  if  they  are  defrauded 
of  their  revenue  (by  collusion  between  their  own  oflicers  and 
foreign  merchants),  theirs  alone  is  the  fault  and  the  loss.  But 
is  it  no  concern  of  a  foreign  nation  and  its  government  whether 
those  who  represent  its  commerce  and  nationality  bring  credit 
or  disgrace  upon  their  country  by  their  dealings?  Is  the  loss 
only  on  one  side  ?  How  does  the  conscientious  trader  thrive 
in  such  circumstances  ?  And  how  much  ill  will  and  excuse  for 
bad  faith  on  the  part  of  the  Chinese  Government  may  be  due 
to  this  one  cause?  Merchants  are  never  slow  to  claim  protec- 
tion for  their  interests  as  a  national  obligation,  even  at  the  cost 
of  a  war — and  they  are  quite  right.  Such  an  obligation  un- 
doubtedly exists ;  but  is  it  no  concern  of  Statesmen  what  may 
be  the  character  of  the  mercantile  transactions  and  the  hon- 
esty of  the  dealings  for  which  they  be  called  upon  to  draw  the 
flword  ?  We  owe  much  of  our  commercial  position  in  the 
world,  and  the  wealth  it  brings,  to  the  British  name  for  good 
faith  and  honesty.  And  can  this  be  dishonored,  or  flung  to 
the  winds,  in  any  quarter  of  the  globe,  without  prejudice  to 
our  commercial  interests  every  where  ?  Were  it  a  matter  of 
as  perfect  indifference,  as  has  often  been  asserted,  what  befell 
the  Chinese  revenue,  it  would  still  be  of  grave  concern  to  us  in 
a  national  sense  that  Englishmen  should  not  be  engaged  in  de- 

C 


60  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  L 

frauding  it.  These  are  serious  considerations,  and  with  too  di- 
rect a  bearing  upon  our  position  and  commerce  in  the  East  to 
be  safely  overlooked.  No  doubt  the  effort  now  making  to 
establish  at  the  consular  ports,  by  a  leaven  of  foreign  elements, 
an  efficient  inspectorate  of  customs,  and  completely  reorganize 
the  establishments  hitherto  existing,  radically  vicious  and  bad 
as  they  notoriously  were,  is  a  task  in  which  perfect  success 
can  not  be  looked  for  at  once,  if  even  in  the  end,  after  time  and 
experience  shall  have  given  education  and  training  to  the  many 
subordinates  of  all  kinds  required,  and  perfected  the  machinery. 
Perfect  institutions  exist  nowhere ;  and  China,  with  its  under- 
paid officials  and  their  prescriptive  rights  under  such  a  system 
— to  pay  themselves  by  every  kind  of  bribery  and  extortion, 
neglect  and  peculation — is  the  last  place  to  produce  them.  We 
may  take  it  for  granted,  therefore,  that  much,  for  a  long  time 
at  least,  must  necessarily  be  imperfect  in  any  administration  of 
customs  that  can  be  organized  under  a  Foreign  Inspectoi-ate. 
It  must,  consequently,  be  open  to  cavil  and  objection ;  and  all 
who  are  inimical  to  an  impartial  and  rigid  enforcement  of  cus- 
toms will  find  it  easy  work  to  discover  flaws  and  evidences  of 
imperfect  working.  But  the  true  question,  after  all,  is,  not 
whether  this  machinery  or  any  other  that  can  be  devised  is 
perfect,  for  that  we  know  to  be  unattainable,  but  whether  it 
is,  under  the  circumstances,  the  best  attainable  ?  And,  again, 
whether  the  administration,  by  the  introduction  of  certain  for- 
eign elements  of  honesty  and  vigor,  under  intelligent  direction, 
does  not  constitute  a  vast  improvement  on  any  system  tliat  has 
hitherto  existed  in  native  hands  alone?  If  it  is,  we  must  be 
content  to  accept  with  the  improvement  the  certainty  that 
there  will  be  no  exemption  from  the  law  of  humanity  which 
precludes  absolute  perfection.  As  for  the  plausible  objections 
which  are  now  and  then  advanced,  in  default  of  better  argu- 
ments, that  the  British  Government  (or  the  Treaty  powers  gen- 
erally), by  encouraging  these  effiarts  of  the  Chinese  to  infuse 
new  vigor  into  their  administration  of  customs — as  into  the  po- 
lice of  the  coast  for  the  suppression  of  piracy,  by  the  employ- 
ment of  foreigners  and  the  purchase  of  gunboats — are  under- 
mining their  independence  and  usurping  their  rights,  it  is  only 
waste  of  time  to  answer  them.  What  European  power  has 
ever  hesitated  to  employ  foreigners  when  these  could  supply  a 
special  knoAvledge  or  a  talent  not  to  be  found  in  the  country? 
How  does  Russia,  one  of  the  greatest  European  powers,  con- 
duct its  administration?  Is  there  no  employment  of  foreign- 
ers ?  And  what  statesman  or  politician  has  ever  seen  in  such 
a  course  a  ground  of  protest,  or  of  danger  to  Russia  ?    So  far 


Chap.  I.]  CONDITIONS  OF  SUCCESS.  61 

from  seeing  in  these  agencies,  and  infusion  of  foreign  blood  and 
intellect  in  the  administration  of  an  Eastern  empire,  a  cause  of 
regret  orgroxmd  of  objection,  I  believe  it  is  only  thus  that  any 
amalgamation  of  the  two  civilizations  of  the  East  and  West,  so 
diflFerent  in  kind  and  antagonistic  in  tendencies,  can  ever  be 
brought  about,  or  more  harmonious  relations  established.  Im- 
provement, it  is  true,  to  be  either  general  or  eflfective,  must 
come  from  within  and  not  from  without.  With  the  best  good 
will  in  the  world,  neither  Great  Britain,  nor  all  the  Western 
powers  united — as  they  probably  never  will  be — can  supply  a 
remedy  for  the  universal  anarchy,  corruption,  and  bad  govern- 
ment existing  at  the  present  day  in  the  Chinese  Empire.  But 
there  must  be  a  beginning  somewhere,  and  it  is  probably  easier 
and  more  hopeful  to  commence  from  without  under  existing 
circumstances. 

To  relieve  the  Chinese  Empire  of  two  of  its  great  enemies, 
piracy  and  smuggling,  the  one  so  damaging  to  its  commerce, 
and  the  other  to  its  revenue,  it  is  evident  indeed  that  two 
things  are  wanted,  which,  I  repeat,  no  foreign  power  can  sup- 
ply. A  good  and  strong  government,  and  an  honest  adminis- 
tration throughout  the  provinces,  but  especially  of  the  customs 
along  the  coast  and  on  the  navigable  rivers.  Whether  it  be 
vain  to  look  for  these  in  the  existing  generation,  time  alone 
can  show ;  but  Foreign  Powers  in  treaty  with  China,  having 
large  interests  involved,  are  still  at  liberty  (if  not  constrained 
in  their  own  behalf)  to  do  their  best  in  aid,  when  the  existing 
government  is  disposed,  either  spontaneously  or  under  advice, 
to  make  efforts  for  their  own  regeneration  and  the  salvation 
of  the  country.  To  reform  their  administration,  improve  the 
custom-house,  reorganize,  and,  indeed,  create  both  an  army  ard 
a  navy,  are  all  needful  conditions  of  success ;  and  any  aid  the 
powers  of  the  West  can  give  for  the  speedy  attainment  of  these 
ends  will  be  a  gain  to  civilization,  and  a  direct  benefit  to 
nearly  a  third  of  the  whole  human  race. 

The  sun  was  rapidly  rising  higher  and  higher  as  the  morn- 
ing walk  drew  to  a  close,  together  with  my  speculations  on 
the  past  and  the  future.  The  rain-clouds  dispersed,  and  a  gal- 
lant fleet  might  be  seen  stretching  across  the  bay,  with  pend- 
ants and  ensigns  of  many  nations.  Music  came  floating  on  the 
breeze  from  the  U.  S.  S.  '  Powhatan ;'  H.  M.  ship  '  Fury'  was 
getting  up  her  steam,  with  300  marines  on  board,  bound  for 
the  north,  for  the  then  impending  struggle  at  the  Peiho,  and 
II.  M,  S. 'Sampson'  was  ready  also  for  the  conveyance  of 
the  Diplomatic  mission  to  Yeddo.  We  took  our  leave  of 
Hongkong  on  May  IV,  and  bent  our  course  northward  for 


52  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  I. 

Nagasaki  or  Shanghae,  according  as  coals  and  weather  might 
determine. 

The  incidents  of  a  voyage  up  the  coast  from  Hongkong  in 
these  days  of  steam  are  few,  unless  one  happens  to  fall  in  with 
a  typhoon,  or  succeeds  in  discovering  a  new  rock;  and  the 
month  of  May  offers  less  cliance  of  either,  perhaps,  than  any 
other  in  the  year.  The  escape  from  the  sultry  heat  of  Canton 
and  Hongkong,  to  the  fresh  breezes  of  the  higher  latitudes  and 
open  sea,  is  the  most  noteworthy  and  delightful  of  the  '  inci- 
dents,' but  this  is  not  an  interesting  event  to  any  one  out  of 
the  tropics.  To  feel  a  desire  for  a  blanket,  and  to  escape  the 
sleep-disturbing  trumpet  of  the  musquitoes,  ai*e  chief  elements 
of  a  happiness  only  born  of  contrast.  The  winds  were  ad- 
verse, and  so  we  turned  our  course  toward  the  wide  mouth  of 
the  leviathan  of  I'ivers,  the  Yangtze,  and  arrived  at  Shanghae 
in  time  for  the  Queen's  birthday.  It  was  not  the  Queen's 
weather,  however,  for  the  morning  was  wet  and  stormy.  In 
vain  the  numerous  ships  of  war  were  dressed  in  their  gayest 
colors,  and  all  the  merchant  vessels  followed  suit;  every  thing 
looked  drooping,  wet,  and  miserable. 

I  wandered  through  the  Foreign  Settlement  despite  both 
rain  and  mud,  over  once  familiar  ground.  There  is  certainly 
nothing  more  wonderful  in  the  East  than  the  rapid  growtli  of 
this  place,  and  the  vast  trade  to  which  it  has  given  rise,  as  the 
shipping  port  of  the  silk  country,  and  many  of  tlie  tea  districts. 
Fifteen  years  ago,  corn,  and  rice,  and  cotton  covered  the 
ground,  now  entirely  occupied  for  more  than  a  mile  square 
with  foreign  buildings  —  mansions  for  the  foreign  merchants, 
and  pack -houses  of  corresponding  extent  for  merchandise. 
This  is  farther  increased  by  a  Chinese  settlement  in  the  rear, 
its  occupants  having  sought  peace  and  security  where  the 
flags  of  Western  powers  (and  chief  of  these,  by  the  magnitude 
of  our  interests  and  commei'cial  transactions,  the  British)  give 
no  vain  promise  of  both.  Some  80,000  Chinese,  many  of  the 
better  and  wealthier  classes  of  merchants,  have  thus  located 
themselves  of  their  own  free  choice,  and  built  wide  streets  and 
extensive  bazars.  They  pay  road-  and  police-rates,  and  con- 
form to  the  municipal  regulations  of  foreign  growth  with  out- 
ward willingness,  if  not  with  scrupulous  fidelity.  The  Chinese 
are  certainly  among  the  most  easily-governed  people  in  the 
world;  given  two  conditions  only  —  honesty  of  purpose  and 
strength  in  the  governing  power.  Under  such  conditions,  the 
latter  is  hardly  ever  called  into  actiA^e  exercise.  It  is  enough 
that  it  should  be  known  to  exist.  The  city  itself  had  but  par- 
tially recovered  its  devastation  by  the  horde  of  soi-disant  pa- 


Chap.  IJ  OUR  POSITION  IN  CHINA.  S3 

triots  and  ruthless  spoliators — banditti,  which  gained  posses- 
sion in  1853,  and  held  it  against  an  Imperial  army  until  the 
beginning  of  1855.  A  word  from  the  Treaty  Powers  might, 
I  believe,  have  averted  such  a  calamity  then,  and  saved  from 
spoliation  and  ruin  a  population  of  some  80,000  industrious 
and  peace-loving  people.  But  a  want  of  unanimity  and  decis- 
ion among  the  Foreign  representatives  on  the  spot,  either  as 
to  the  end  or  the  means,  prevented  any  effort  being  made,  and 
the  opportunity  was  lost.  Warned  by  past  experience,  we 
shall  not  willingly  let  this  consular  port  again  become  a  prey 
to  the  miserable  vampires  who  exist  only  by  sucking  the  life's 
blood  out  of  flourishing  towns,  in  many  of  which  we  have 
large  commercial  and  treaty-guaranteed  interests.  True,  the 
policy  to  be  pursued  in  such  circumstances  opens  up  a  large 
question,  on  which  there  has  been  already  much  difference  of 
opinion.  It  is  one,  however,  that  can  hardly  be  discussed  with 
advantage  upon  any  basis  of  noti-intervention  interpreted  in  a 
thoroughly  doctrinaire  spirit.  Any  word  spoken  or  blow 
struck  to  defend  the  lives,  the  property,  or  the  trade  of  our 
merchants  at  Shanghae  or  to  safeguard  the  national  interests 
of  vast  amount  inseparably  connected  with  these,  and  the  sal- 
vation of  Shanghae  itself  from  capture  and  destruction  (synony- 
mous terms  with  the  Taepings),  is  a  violation  of  a  non-inter- 
vention policy,  under  such  interpretation.  Are  we  then  to 
give  up,  without  an  effort,  a  trade  employing  thirty  millions 
of  capital,  and  yielding  to  the  British  and  Indian  exchequers  a 
Revenue  of  ten  millions  sterling  annually  ?  Let  us  look  the 
diflSculty  in  the  face.  We  must  either  make  up  our  minds  to 
do  this,  and  accept  the  consequences  in  lost  trade  and  increased 
taxation,  both  at  home  and  in  India,  to  make  up  so  many  mil- 
lions of  revenue,  or  do  what  may  be  necessary  to  avert  such  a 
catastrophe.  It  is  precisely  here,  I  believe,  that  the  great  di- 
vergence of  opinion  begins.  One  party  of  politicians,  general 
advocates  of  a  peace  and  non-intervention  policy,  protest 
against  any  employment  of  our  forces  in  the  defense  of  the 
consular  ports  and  centres  of  our  Chinese  trade — first,  as  a  de- 
parture from  a  sound  policy  of  absolute  neutrality ;  and,  sec- 
ondly, as  unnecessary  for  the  end  in  view,  if  that  end  be  only 
protection  to  our  trade.  The  Taepings,  it  is  argued,  might  be 
treated  with  just  as  easily  and  effectually  as  the  Government 
of  China.  Granted  that  it  is  a  departure  from  absolute  neu- 
trality, inasmuch  as  though  the  object  be  other  than  partisan- 
ship, yet,  to  give  the  insurgents  a  check  in  any  direction,  or 
prevent  their  seizing  on  a  great  sea-poil,  is  in  effect  to  damage 
their  cause,  and  by  so  much  to  interfere  with  their  success^ 


54  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  I. 

and  the  issue  of  the  struggle  between  them  and  the  existing 
government,  we  have  only  to  consider  the  second  assertion 
that  it  is  unnecessary,  even  if  justifiable.  But  that  entirely 
rests  on  the  assumption,  demonstrably  untenable  and  dis- 
proved by  experience,  that  we  could  enter  into  arrangements 
with  the  Taepings,  and  let  them  occupy  all  the  consular  ports 
and  lines  of  traffic  without  serious  detriment,  if  not  destruc- 
tion, to  our  trade  and  treaty  rights.  They  are  not  a  govern- 
ment in  any  sense  of  the  word.  They  neither  oiFer  any  of  the 
guarantees  of  a  government,  nor  any  responsible  head  to  treat 
with.*  Assuming,  for  the  moment,  that  our  obligations  to- 
ward the  Imperial  Government  would  warrant  such  negotia- 
tions, the  attempts  we  have  made  in  this  direction  have  been 
signal  failures — failures,  as  might  be  shown,  inevitable  from 
the  constitution  and  character  of  the  party  with  which  we  en- 
deavored to  treat.  The  Taepings  acknowledge  no  treaties, 
and  are  bound  by  no  laws.  How  can  a  regular  and  responsi- 
ble Government,  such  as  ours,  enter  into  treaty  relations  with 
an  armed  horde  of  illiterate  and  lawless  insurgents,  whose  sole 
vocation  these  ten  years  past  has  been  one  of  devastation ; 
who  wander  from  province  to  province,  as  locusts  migrate  from 
field  to  field  when  they  have  utterly  consumed  and  destroyed 
all  that  can  support  life  ?  Must  we  patiently  look  on  and  see 
our  trade  and  revenue,  present  and  prospective,  destroyed  by 
these  spoliators  of  honest  men's  goods,  or  shall  we  take  effect- 
ive means  for  their  defense? 

In  what  these  may  best  consi^^t  is  another  question,  and  one 
of  detail  rather  than  principle.  So  also  is  that  w  hich  regards 
the  limits  within  which  we  shall  seek  to  extend  protection. 
But,  as  regards  the  means,  it  will  be  found  these  resolve  them- 
selves into  two  :  Great  Britain,  or  Great  Britain  and  France 
as  at  present,  may  either  employ  their  own  forces,  naval  and 
military,  to  defend  the  principal  ports  and  centres  of  trade  (or 
such  of  them  as  shall  be  deemed  most  essential),  China  paying 
for  the  expenses  of  such  contingents,  or  assist  the  Chinese 
Government  to  organize  an  army  and  navy  for  themselves, 
competent  to  do  the  same  work.  This,  of  course,  is  to  help 
the  Imperial  Government,  and  may  naturally  be  expected  to 
bring  down  upon  us  the  active  hostility  of  the  Taepings.  But 
the  worst  they  can  do  can  not  be  more  fatal  to  our  interests 
than  non-intervention  and  neutrality  would  be,  taken  in  such 
absolute  sense  as  the  abstaining  from  all  action.  We  are  do- 
ing this  in  America,  it  is  true,  and  accepting  the  loss.    But  the 

*  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that  the  rebellion  has  many  heads,  acting  in- 
•iependently  of  each  other. 


Chap.  I.]    QUESTIONS  OF  POLICY.— INTERVENTION.  55 

character  and  conditions  of  the  struggle  going  on  are  differ- 
ent ;  and,  moreover,  where  the  same  rules  of  International  law 
are  accepted  as  binding  on  both  sides,  the  obligation  is  mutual 
to  adhere  to  them,  whatever  may  be  the  cost.  We  are  bound 
by  no  such  obligations  in  reference  to  the  Taepings,  because 
they  themselves  recognize  no  laws  but  those  of  their  own  mak- 
ing, and  are  not  particular  in  observing  them. 

Intervention,  in  an  international  sense,  implies  joar^isawsA^jo, 
and  the  espousal  of  a  cause.  There  has  been  no  desire  to  in- 
tervene in  this  sense,  but  only  to  interpose  our  arms  in  self- 
defense.  Intervention  of  the  specific  and  limited  character 
here  refeiTed  to  should  more  properly  be  regarded  as  simply 
a  prohibition,  issued  to  those  who  recognize  no  law,  are  bound 
by  no  treaties,  and  respect  only  force — a  declaration  thiit  at 
the  consular  ports,  where  foreign  powers  have  large  vested  in- 
terests and  treaty  rights,  no  one,  in  wanton  spoliation,  shall  be 
allowed  to  destroy  them,  and  with  them  the  lives  and  prop- 
erty of  thousands  of  peaceable  inhabitants,  with  whom  we  have 
daily  relations  of  amity  and  commerce.  If  the  right  to  inter- 
vene and  the  necessity  for  such  interference  are  defensible  on 
these  grounds,  the  advantages  of  such  a  course  are  still  more 
clearly  demonstrable.  The  population  of  these  ports  will  learn 
to  look  upon  us  as  their  best  friends,  and  a  sure  defense  against 
violence  and  wrong  they  are  otherwise  unable  to  resist.  The 
insurgent  rabble  themselves  will  regard  us  with  all  the  more 
respect  for  our  determined  bearing;  and  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment may  even  be  grateful  for  exertions,  by  which  the  custom- 
house revenues  (becoming  every  day  of  greater  importance  to 
them)  are  preserved  from  the  grasp  of  their  enemies.  And, 
whether  grateful  or  not,  the  Emperor's  counselors  can  not  help 
seeing,  by  such  sei-vice,  that  they  have  a  direct  interest  in  the 
preservation  of  foreign  commerce,  and  the  relations  of  good 
will  connected  with  its  development.  No  doubt  this,  or  any 
other  course  that  might  be  adopted  for  the  protection  of  our 
commerce,  is  open  to  criticism,  as  involving  us  in  a  serious  un- 
dertaking with  many  difficulties.  But  one  thing,  I  repeat,  is 
clear :  we  must  either  intervene  (singly,  or  with  other  powers), 
to  protect  at  least  one  or  more  of  the  great  centres  of  our  trade 
in  China,  oi-  make  up  our  minds  to  see  it  destroyed  by  the 
insurgent  bands  ravaging  the  country.  Are  those  who  advo- 
cate a  laissez  faire  policy,  and  abstinence  from  all  protective 
measures,  prepared  for  such  a  sacrifice  of  trade  and  revenue? 
If  not, '  qui  veut  lafiyi,  veiU  les  moyens? 

These  considerations  of  general  policy  very  naturally  sug- 
gested themselves  with  the  still  evident  traces  of  the  savago 


66 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN, 


[Chap,  t. 


and  wanton  destruction  wrought  by  a  handful  of  horse-boys 
and  rabble  Cantonese  once  more  under  my  eyes.  Wide  spaces, 
filled  only  with  ruins,  lie  between  the  foreign  settlement  and 
the  city  walls,  which  I  remembered  completely  covered  with 
Chinese  streets,  the  homes  of  a  large  and  industrious  popula- 
tion. Within  the  walls,  permanent  loss  and  devastation  were 
still  every  where  apparent.  Thousands  of  houses  had  been 
leveled,  and  tens  of  thousands  of  their  inhabitants  either  tor- 
tured to  death,  beheaded,  or  cast  out  houseless  and  destitute 
to  perish  in  the  open  country ;  but  it  would  be  hard  to  find 
a  single  human  being  who  had  reaped  any  tangible  or  perma- 
nent benefit !  Even  the  ruffian  leader,  Chin-Orlin^  who  alone 
of  all  his  followers  made  his  escape  at  the  capture  of  the  city 
(by  the  help  of  a  foreign  merchant),  was  prowHng  about  Hong- 
kong the  other  day,  trying  in  vain,  through  more  foreign  agen- 
cy, to  get  possession  of  a  certain  lot  of  ground  in  Shanghae. 
There,  known  only  to  himself  he  said,  lay  buried  a  lac  of  dol- 
lars, wrung  from  the  tears  and  agony  of  his  tortured  victims. 
As  many  in  Europe  have  not  enjoyed  the  advantage  of  a  per- 
sonal acquaintance  with  these  disciples  of  Taeping,  Ibeg  to  in- 
troduce them  more  particularly  in  a  study  from  nature  (oppo- 
site), made  by  a  warm  partisan  of  theirs  con  amove. 

As  I  threaded  my  way  amidst  crowded  thoroughfares,  and 
scrambled  over  the  rubbish  of  fallen  houses,  destroyed  when 
the  insurgents  fired  the  city  as  they  sought  to  escape,  some 
of  the  more  striking  features  of  our  position  in  China  involun- 
tarily occupied  my  thoughts.  To  this  place,  where  so  many 
years  of  my  life  had  been  spent,  I  had  now  returned  for  a  mo- 
ment, after  a  two  years'  absence  in  Europe,  and  therefore 
could  look  upon  old  scenes  with  some  of  the  freshness  of  eye 
which  an  artist  brings  to  his  work  after  a  long  rest  has  re- 
stored the  power  of  distinguishing  the  tints,  often  destroyed  or 
impaired  by  a  too  constant  gaze  on  the  same  glaring  colors. 
The  changes  and  wondei-ful  development  of  trade  a  few  years 
had  brought  about  in  Shanghae,*  the  chief  of  the  five  ports 

*  Brief  Summary  of  Statistics — 1855-1860: 


No.  of 
Vessels 
Inward. 

Tons. 

No.  of 

Vessels 

Outward. 

Tons. 

Value  of 
Imports. 

Value  of 
Exports. 

Total. 

1855 
1856 
1857 
1858 
1859 
1860 

164 
398 
633 
754 
926 
1007 

68,630 
127,730 
205,613 
242,624 
287,100 
304,154 

223 
353 
298 
378 
939 
972 

111,593 
122,106 
114,243 
154,795 
289,709 
293,568 

£ 
7,773,869 
8,325,772 
10,227,895 
12,061,185 
1.5,124,920 
18,326,430 

£ 
9,032,944 
9,538,379 
11,302,833 
12,  .563,01 4 
13,330,055 
10,779,319 

£ 
16,806,813 
17,864,151 
21,530,728 
24,624,199 
28,454,975 
29,105,749 

Chaf.I.J  a  study.— the  'GREAT  PEACE'  DYNASTY.    57 


FOLLOWERS   OF   THE   'GREAT   PEACE'    DYNASTY. 


originally  opened  under  treaty  in  1843,  are  such  as  can  hard- 
ly be  realized  by  any  one  away  from  the  spot.  Nothing  more 
surprising  has  ever  been  seen  in  the  annals  of  colonization  or 
trade.    When  I  first  arrived  in  Shanghae  in  1 846,  to  take  pos- 

The  above  figures  include  opium  and  treasure  in  the  inij»orts ;  apart  from 
these,  the  ratio  of  increase  and  the  actual  amount  of  the  im/iort  trade  is  com- 
))ar)itivcly  small.  This  summary  is  takon  from  the  Custom-house  returns 
])ubli'!heil  under  the  Foreij^u  Ins|ieclors;  and  it  is  hut  justice  to  say,  that 
their  <•^(ml>lctcne^^s  and  (general  accuracy  is  not  one  of  the  K'.ast  st^rvices  they 
Ituvu  tendered  to  commerce.     See  Appendix  A  for  some  additional  details. 

C  2 


58  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  I. 

session  of  a  post  which  I  held  for  nine  years,  there  were  but 
three  or  four  houses  on  the  '  Bund,'  or  river  front,  which  now 
extends  in  a  continuous  line  nearly  two  miles,  to  the  south  gate 
of  the  city.  Behind — away  in  the  midst  of  cornfields  and 
Chinese  hamlets — was  the  beginning  of  a  Missionary  settle- 
ment, supposed  to  be  far  enough  in  the  country  never  to  be 
overtaken  by  the  all-encroaching  and  nnnidane  pursuits  of  com- 
merce. It  was  difficult  in  1859  for  me  to  find  ray  way  through 
a  very  labyrinth  of  streets  and  houses  to  where  the  once  iso- 
lated missionary  village  looked  out  on  the  open  country.  The 
busy  hum  of  voices  and  din  of  traffic  is  now  every  where  around 
them.  Crowds  of  men,  Jew,  Pagan,  and  Christian,  Buddhist 
and  Parsee,  Chinese  and  European,  fill  the  streets,  with  endless 
gangs  of  coolies  chanting  their  pavior-like  sound  to  keep  each 
other  in  step,  as  they  press  on  beneath  heavy  burdens  of  tea- 
chests,  bales  of  silk,  and  long-cloth.  Sedan-chairs,  with  Chinese 
brokers  inside,  are  rushing  madly  on,  to  the  imminent  danger 
of  the  eyes  of  pedestrians,  from  the  projecting  poles  of  the 
chairs  just  reaching  to  the  level  of  the  head.  The  thousands 
of  Chinese  who,  since  the  seizure  and  destruction  of  the  city 
by  the  insurgents,  have  been  continually  pressing  within  our 
limits,  give  a  fabulous  value  to  the  land.  Wherever  a  spare 
lot  could  be  had,  they  have  either  leased  or  bought  it  and  built 
houses. 

The  original  occupants  of  European  race  run  some  risk  of 
being  jostled  out  of  their  possessions,  just  as  these  pushed  and 
bought  out  the  native  possessors  of  the  soil;  a  sort  of  retrib- 
utive justice,  perhaps,  but  one  that  was  little  anticipated  when 
every  effort  was  being  made,  some  ten  or  fifteen  years  before, 
to  get  all  the  land  into  foreign  hands.  This  result  was,  how- 
ever, clearly  enough  foreseen  b}'^  myself  in  the  beginning ;  and 
an  endeavor  was  made,  both  by  my  predecessor,  Colonel  Bal- 
four, at  the  very  outset,  and  subsequently  by  myself,  to  keep 
the  ground  within  the  limits  of  the  Foreign  Concession  exclu- 
sively for  foreigners,  as  better  for  the  permanent  interests  of 
these  and  the  security  of  the  settlement.  But  if  it  be  true 
that  there  never  was  an  Act  of  Parliament  through  which  a 
clever  lawyer  could  not  drive  a  coach  and  six,  it  is  still  more 
certain  that  there  are  no  laAvs  or  regulations  which  can  be  so 
applied  to  various  nationalities  in  an  Eastern  country  that  they 
may  not,  and  will  not  be  broken  through.  What  some  may 
do  with  profit  and  impunity,  can  never  be  effectually  prohib- 
ited to  othei'S.  And  so  the  once  Foreign  Settlement  has  be- 
come a  Chinese  town,  and,  as  a  natural  consequence,  has  gone 
through  a  series  of  panics  during  the  last  few  years,  lest  it 


Chap.  I.]  MIXTURE  OF  RACES.— AVARICE.  59 

should  be  given  over  to  sack  and  plunder  on  the  approach  of 
the  insurgents,  after  the  fashion  of  Chinese  cities ;  the  greatest 
danger  coming  from  the  Chinese  population  within  the  bound- 
aries, and  in  the  very  midst  of  which  every  foreigner  now 
must  live.  The  natives  are  piobably  in  the  proportion  of  a 
hundred  to  one  of  the  foreigners.  Hitherto  this  calamity  has 
been  averted  by  British  and  French  forces;  but  as  this  also 
may  come  to  an  end,  being  much  too  expensive  a  process  for 
permanent  adoption,  the  future  of  Shanghae  is  by  no  means  so 
secure  as  one  would  wish  to  see  it.  It  is  true,  many  of  the 
wealthier  and  better  classes  of  Chinese  have  taken  refuge  in 
the  Foreign  Settlement ;  and  as  they  have  much  to  lose,  their 
presence  alfords  a  certain  security.  Yet  even  this  is,  after  all, 
worth  very  little;  for  naturally  timid,  and  of  unwarlike  dispo- 
sition, they  would  only  flock  together  or  fly  the  place  in  time 
of  danger,  like  so  many  sheep  on  the  approach  of  wolves.  And 
in  their  train,  thousands  of  Chinese  who  have  nothing  to  lose 
— many  of  the  worst  classes,  indeed — have  also  taken  up  their 
abode  in  the  Foreign  Settlement  as  an  Alsatia,  where  no  law 
of  their  own  country  can  reach  them,  and  no  power  of  the 
stranger  exists  to  deal  with  an  evil  of  this  nature.  Many  years 
ago,  when,  as  Her  Majesty's  Consul,  I  used  to  foreshadow  pre- 
cisely this  state  of  aft'airs,  with  some  fahit  hope,  at  first,  of  in- 
ducing the  more  influential  of  the  residents,  among  my  own 
countrymen  more  especially,  to  second  ray  efforts,  and  prevent 
this  location  of  Chinese  amoruf  them  as  a  pei'inanent  source  of 
danger,  and  a  grievous  deterioration  of  the  settlement  in  all 
save  the  immediate  dollar  value  of  the  land  and  houses,  I  had 
a  conversation  with  one  of  iheni  honest  and  outspoken  enough 
to  tell  the  whole  truth.  '  No  doubt  your  anticipations  of  fu- 
ture evil  have  a  certain  foundation,  and,  indeed,  may  be  correct 
enough,  though  something  may  be  urged  on  the  other  side 
as  to  the  advantages  of  having  the  Chinese  mingled  with  us, 
and  departing  from  the  old  Canton  system  of  isolation ;  but, 
upon  the  whole,  I  agree  with  you.  The  day  will  probably 
come  when  those  who  then  may  be  here  will  see  abundant 
cause  to  regret  what  is  now  being  done,  in  letting  and  sublet- 
ting to  Chinese.  But  in  what  way  am  I  and  my  brother  land- 
holders and  speculators  concerned  in  this?  You,  as  H.M.'s. 
Consul,  are  bound  to  look  to  national  and  permanent  interests 
— that  is  your  business ;  but  it  is  my  business  to  make  a  for- 
tune with  the  least  possible  loss  of  time,  by  letting  my  land  to 
Chinese,  and  building  for  them  at  thirty  or  forty  per  cent,  in- 
terest, if  that  is  the  best  thing  I  can  do  with  my  money.  In 
two  or  three  years  at  farthest,  I  hope  to  realize  a  fortune  and 


eo  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  tCHAP.  I. 

get  away ;  and  what  can  it  matter  to  me  if  all  Shanghae  dis- 
appear afterward  in  five  or  flood  ?  You  must  not  expect  men 
in  my  situation  to  condemn  themselves  to  years  of  prolonged 
exile  in  an  unhealthy  climate  for  the  benefit  of  posterity.  We 
are  money-making,  practical  men.  Our  business  is  to  make 
money,  as  much  and  as  fast  as  we  can ;  and  for  this  end,  all 
modes  and  means  are  good  which  the  law  permits.'  My  plain- 
spoken  friend  quite  convinced  me  I  was  losing  time  in  any  ef- 
forts to  stem  the  tide  of  land-jobbing  and  house-building  for 
Chinese  tenants,  who  could  be  found  to  repay  the  capital  of 
land  and  house  by  a  two  or  three  years'  rent ;  and  so  ended 
my  desire  to  continue  the  struggle,  too  evidently  hopeless. 
And  as  long  as  there  is  land  still  to  be  bought  up,  and  room 
to  build  more  houses,  and  Great  Britain  supplies  means  of  pro- 
tection (baiTing  now  and  then  an  uncomfortable  panic  of  the 
destruction  of  the  whole  by  fire  and  pillage  from  the  enemy 
witliin  the  citadel), '  all  goes  on  as  merry  as  a  marriage  bell.' 
Successive  merchants,  clerks,  and  storekeepers — generations  of 
them,  so  to  speak,  come  and  disappear,  stay  their  time  of  five 
or  ten  years,  and  carry  off  a  fortune,  rejoicing  in  the  Bourbon 
consolation,  apr^  moi  le  deluge  !  They  have  snatched  wealth 
out  of  the  fire,  and  so  may  others  after  them,  or,  if  not,  tant 
pis!  The  merchant  feels  he  must  be  quick  in  a  climate  as  try- 
ing as  that  of  China.  He  has  to  snatch  a  fortune  from  the 
jaws  of  death,  and,  imless  he  make  haste,  it  is  more  than  prob- 
able he  will  only  dig  his  own  grave,  and  be  snatched  away 
himself.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  confessed  these 
are  conditions  sadly  adverse  to  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  con- 
stituted authorities  to  provide  for  the  future  security  and  well- 
being  of  a  foreign  settlement  at  the  expense  of  the  present, 
however  small  this  may  be,  or  great  and  permanent  the  other. 
I  saw  with  the  more  satisfaction,  therefore,  that,  despite  of  all 
this,  the  Municipality,  of  which  the  foundations  Avere  laid  in 
my  day,  still  survived  as  an  institution,  and,  even  under  the 
strain  of  an  enormous  increase  of  property  and  population,  did 
good  service,  though  manifestly  becoming  inadequate  to  meet 
the  growing  exigencies. 

We  left  Shanghae  for  Nagasaki  after  a  delay  of  some  days, 
having  been  detained  by  incessant  rains,  heavy  enough  even 
to  prevent  coaling.  When  it  rains  in  Shanghae,  it  does  so  in 
earnest — sets  all  water-proof  devices  at  naught,  and  reduces  the 
roads  to  a  sea  of  mud,  hardly  passable  except  on  stilts ;  a  state 
of  things  which  materially  diminishes  any  regret  at  leaving  it. 


Chap.  I.]  THE  FUTURE.  61 

I  could  not  help  reflecting,  as  we  steamed  out  of  the  Hwang- 
po  (the  tributary  river  on  which  Shanghae  is  situated),  that  it 
would  not  be  among  the  least  curious  or  important  of  the  in- 
cidental results  attaching  to  the  enlarged  traffic  and  inter- 
course even  then  rapidly  developing  between  this  port  and 
Japan,  that  chiefly  by  and  through  the  Chinese  ports  (the  more 
nearly  assimilated  wants  and  tastes  of  the  two  races  mainly 
aiding,  in  combination  with  the  activity,  enterprise,  and  capi- 
tal of  British  merchants),  a  great  trade,  opening  up  the  re- 
sources of  both  semi-secluded  empires,  should  be  developed. 
This  was  no  part  of  the  original  design  of  the  Western  Powers 
in  framing  the  recent  treaties,  but  only  thus  was  any  foreign 
trade  in  the  first  instance  created  and  developed.  A  Chinese 
trade  with  Japan  already  existed  at  Nagasaki,  of  very  old  date ; 
and  though  much  diminished  in  value  and  importance,  Uke  the 
Dutch,  it  still  retained  some  vitality  up  to  the  date  of  the  open- 
ing of  new  ports  under  treaties.  Wants  had  been  created  the 
natural  products  of  Japan  could  not  (or  did  not)  supply,  for 
which  they  had  been  accustomed  therefore  to  look  to  a  foreign 
market;  and  thus  the  Japanese  mind  had  been  familiarized 
with  the  idea  at  least  that  a  foreign  trade  might  exist  with  ad- 
vantage to  themselves.  That  the  greater  part  of  such  Chinese 
trade  would  pass  into  foreign  hands,  and  ours  more  particu- 
larly, might  safely  be  predicted  from  the  beginning.  But  this 
carrying  trade  between  China  and  Japan  is  not  certainly  the 
commerce  to  which  we  more  especially  desired  to  open  the 
way  by  our  treaty.  Our  aim  and  hope  was  to  create  a  direct 
trade,  oy  the  interchange  of  Japanese  products  with  British 
goods.    Thus,  as  in  a  thousand  instances,  we  are  reminded  of 

*  a  divinity  that  shapes  our  ends, 
Rough  hew  them  how  we  will.' 

What  we  have  sought  and  striven  for  may,  indeed,  be  ulti- 
mately obtained ;  but  neither  in  the  way  we  looked  for,  nor 
often  with  the  results  anticipated.  The  Chinese  formed  a  nat- 
ural, and,  to  all  appearance,  a  necessary  link  in  the  first  devel- 
opment of  any  large  trade  between  Europe  and  Japan,  just  as 
India  has  long  been  a  connecting  link  with  China.  So,  pass- 
ing from  things  temporal  to  those  that  are  spiritual,  may  we 
not  yet  find  that  Roman  Catholicism  will  form  the  connecting 
link  between  Paganism  in  its  many  idolatrous  forms,  and  a 
purer  Protestantism  ?  Though  I  feel  this  is  dangerous  ground, 
and  scarce  know  whether  Romanists  or  Protestants  would  most 
vehemently  repudiate  as  injurious  any  inference  that  in  the 
ways  of  Providence  either  could  be  beholden  to  the  other,  or 


62  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  I. 

the  final  propagation  of  Christianity  among  the  heathen  be  de- 
pendent upon  an  order  of  progression,  still  1  have  a  strong  con- 
viction on  the  subject.  The  Jews,  under  an  inspired  leader, 
did  not  emerge  out  of  Egyptian  idolatry  into  a  pure  Theism 
without  many  intervening  stages  of  progress;  of  semi-idolatry, 
and  assimilations  to  the  ceremonial  and  material  worship  they 
left  behind.  Man  seems  ill  designed  or  constituted  for  such 
sudden  leaps  from  darkness  into  light ;  and  all  past  missionary 
experience,  I  think,  goes  far  to  enforce  the  unwelcome  truth  at 
which  I  am  glancing,  that  the  abstract  doctrines  of  a  Protestant 
faith  find  acceptance  among  a  heathen  and  idolatrous  race  with 
infinitely  greater  difficulty  than  Romanism.  Such  is  certainly 
the  fact.  It  may  admit  of  other  and  better  explanation  per- 
haps, but  this  alone  suggests  itself  to  me  as  both  adequate  and 
satisfactory.  With  one  reflection  more  I  take  my  leave  of 
China,  which  may  one  day  exercise  as  much  influence  on  the 
Western  world,  and  its  relations  with  the  Eastern  races,  as  we 
can  ever  hope  to  exercise  on  them.  It  has  been  ingeniously 
remarked  by  Mr.  Mill  that  the  Chinese  have  succeeded  beyond 
all  hope,  in  what  English  philanthropists  of  the  present  day  are 
so  industriously  working  at,  in  making  people  all  alike,  all  gov- 
erning their  thoughts  and  conduct  by  the  same  axioms  and 
rules.  He  goes  on  to  say  '  that  the  modern  regime  of  public 
opinion  is,  in  an  unorganized  form,  what  the  Chinese  educa- 
tional and  political  system  are  in  an  organized ;  and,  unless  in- 
dividuality shall  be  able  successfully  to  assert  itself  against  this 
yoke,  Europe,  notwithstanding  its  noble  antecedents  and  its 
professed  Christianity,  will  tend  to  become  another  China.' 

It  is  curious  enough,  that  while  all  things  tend  to  infuse  into 
the  Chinese  mind  ideas  of  progress,  of  change,  and  develop- 
ment, even  at  the  price  of  great  internal  convulsions  and  the 
destruction  of  material  interests,  one  of  our  most  distinguished 
writers  should  see,  in  the  tendency  of  our  own  habits  and  edu- 
cation, worldly  and  other,  a  retrograde  action  to  the  dead  level 
mediocrity  and  immobility  of  the  Chinese  mind !  If  so,  the 
two  ends  of  the  circle,  traveling  from  opposite  points,  may  ulti- 
mately meet  in  Japan,  which  seems  scarcely  less  profoundly 
stirred  up  in  its  depths  by  the  sudden  contact  of  Europe  than 
China,  but  not  so  steadily  bent  on  a  collective  mediocrity. 

And  now  farewell  to  China.  Its  low,  flat  coast  had  long 
been  invisible  when  I  left  the  deck ;  and  the  Yangtze  no  lon- 
ger divided  the  blue  waves  of  the  open  sea  with  its  mud- 
charged  waters,  yellow  and  turbid  in  their  course  for  many  a 
mile.  A  fit  symbol  it  seemed  of  the  great  empire  through 
which  it  takes  its  troubled  way,  bearing  onward  the  disinte- 


Chap.  I.]  A  PROBLEM.— PROGRESS.  63 

grated  fragments  of  a  material  creation  fast  passing  away,  to  be 
built  up  again,  it  may  be,  with  new  elements  and  in  other  forms. 
The  oldest  empire  will  not  last  forever,  any  more  than  the  hills 
and  mountains  which  this  mighty  river  is  slowly  but  surely 
carrying  into  the  depths  of  the  sea.  So  I  took  my  leave  of 
this  empire  of  the  '  Lord  of  ten  thousand  isles,'  one  of  the  many 
Oriental  titles  of  the  sovereign  who  reigns  over  China,  but  cer- 
tainly does  not  govern.  His  overgrown  family  of  four  hund- 
red millions  of '  black-haired  children,'  as  he  aifectionately  styles 
them,  have  led  their '  father'  an  uneasy  life  for  many  long  years 
past.  Nor  can  the  wisest  see  the  end  of  all  the  troubles  which 
distract  the  country,  from  the  Great  Wall  to  the  borders  of 
Nepaul. 

How  far  the  closer  contact  of  foreign  nations,  and  the  pres- 
ence of  their  Representatives  in  Pekin,  may  influence  the  final 
issue  between  the  Emperor  and  his  insurgent  subjects,  or  help 
to  give  the  power  now  wanting  to  put  down  the  wandering 
hordes  of  banditti  and  malcontents  with  whom  pillage  is  the 
end,  and  political  change  only  the  pretext,  is  the  problem  now 
waiting  solution  by  the  progress  of  events.  *  Far  Cathay,'  an 
appropriate  title  once,  and  no  poetic  fiction  when  Coleridge 
wrote,  has  ceased  to  be  applicable  to  the  empire  of '  Kublai 
Khan.'  Steam  and  railroad  have  placed  London  and  Canton 
within  six  weeks  of  each  other.  It  was  but  a  few  years  since 
I  heard  one  of  the  East  India  Company's  servants,  who  had 
knelt  in  his  youth  before  the  throne  of 'Keenlung'  (the  late 
emperor's  grandfather),  describe  the  long  and  weary  twelve 
months  that  used  to  elapse  before  they  could  hope  to  receive 
an  answer  to  their  letters  dispatched  to  Europe  from  Canton ! 
How  their  successors  grumble  now  if  the  mail  gun  at  Hong- 
kong does  not  announce  its  arrival  within  forty-two  days  from 
Marseilles !  Fewer  days  nearly  than,  a  century  ago,  it  required 
weeks.  And  more  is  yet  promised.  Soon  the  electric  tele- 
graph may  flash  intelligence  from  Pekin  to  St.  James's  in  less 
than  as  many  hours,  via  Siberia  and  St.  Petersburg.  It  is  idle, 
then,  to  talk  of  distance,  the  true  measure  of  which  is  Time. 
If  it  take  longer  to  penetrate  into  the  heart  of '  Old  Castile' 
than  to  reach  Canton,  we  are  to  all  intents  nearer  to  the  latter ; 
and  Pekin  is  infinitely  farther  from  Canton,  than  Canton  itself 
is  from  London,  for  access,  traffic,  or  communication.  This  is 
one  of  those  suggestive  facts,  which  appear  full  of  promise,  in 
regard  not  only  to  the  relations  of  Europe  with  China,  but  to 
the  destinies  of  the  Chinese  Empire  and  race,  though  pregnant 
with  change  and  not  exempt  from  danger.  It  must  needs  be 
80,  whether  Treaty  Powers  in  their  wisdom  desire  it  or  not. 


64  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  II. 

With  or  without  their  consent  (it  may  well  be  without  their 
prescience),  influences  are  ah-eaily  active  calculated  to  bring 
about  great  changes  among  the  Chinese,  and  in  their  inter- 
course with  Western  nations.  And  they  are  precisely  the  in- 
fluences over  which  there  is  the  least  control  to  be  exercised 
by  governments,  even  were  they  more  clearly  recognized. 


CHINESE    UNDEK    THE    TAKTAR    DYNASTY. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Voyage  to  Nagasaki. — Japan  as  it  was,  or  a  Glance  at  the  Japanese  Chron- 
icles, and  what  they  tell  us. 

Squalls  and  gales,  with  drenching  rain,  and  a  pitching  sea 
every  now  and  then  sw^eeping  in  at  the  stern-posts,  if  in  a  mo- 
ment of  misplaced  confidence  they  had  been  opened  for  air  and 
light,  were  the  chief  incidents  of  the  passage  from  China  to 
Japan ;  and  this  in  the  '  pleasant  month  of  May' — a  description 
by  no  means  applicable  in  these  latitudes. 

We  see  the  land  at  last — a  long  sweep  of  coast  with  a  bold 
outline ;  but  where  ?  at  what  point  ?  No  sun  for  an  observa- 
tion from  day  to  day ;  you  may  be  near  your  port,  but  dare 


Chap.  II.j  BEACONS  NEEDED.— JAPAN.  65 

not  run  on  in  the  niglit  through  a  dense  sea-fog ;  so  the  gootl 
ship  stops  lier  course,  and  '  lies  to'  for  the  night.  The  next 
morning  finds  you  '  as  you  were,'  wind  '  dead  ahead,'  squalls 
and  rain  or  haze  the  only  alternations,  the  sun  your  only  hope 
— and  nothing  apparently  more  hopeless  than  its  appearance. 
You  console  yourself  by  the  reflection  that  a  blanket  is  desir- 
able at  night,  and  a  pea-jacket  of  the  thicker  sort  an  essential 
by  day.  But  how  long  it  is  to  last  no  one  can  tell.  To  the 
end  of  the  wet  season  ?  As  much  time  almost  may  be  con- 
sumed in  going  from  Hongkong  to  Yeddo  as  is  required  to 
reach  China  from  England  ! 

One  of  the  first  steps  toward  the  opening  of  a  direct  trade 
with  Great  Biitain  would  seem  to  be  a  good  survey  of  the 
Japanese  coasts,  and  the  erection  of  light-houses  or  beacons  ; 
some  landmarks  that  may  supply  the  place  of  an  observation, 
and  enable  the  navigator,  when  he  makes  the  coast,  to  tell  his 
whereabouts  and  how  to  shape  his  course.  I  made  great  ef- 
forts immediately  after  my  arrival  to  obtain  the  services  of  our 
surveying  ships  in  the  China  Seas ;  but  the  war  and  other  cir- 
cumstances prevented  success  until,  in  1861,  a  beginning  to  sup- 
ply the  deficiency  was  made.  Captain  Capella,  of  the  Dutch 
Navy,  in  command  of  II.  N.  M.  S.  the  '  Balli,'  had  in  the  mean 
time  made  a  sort  of  commencement,  by  taking  his  ship  through 
the  inland  sea  or  strait  stretching  between  the  islands  of  Kiu- 
sin,  Sikok,  and  Nipon,  and  coasting  round  the  latter  to  Hako- 
dadi  and  Neeagata,  the  port  on  the  west  coast  which  by  treaty 
was  to  be  opened  to  foreign  trade  on  January  1, 1861.  His 
report,  however,  only  tended  to  show  how  great  was  the  ne- 
cessity of  accurate  surveys- 
While  thus  '  lying  to'  in  the  trough  of  the  Japanese  Seas, 
hoping  against  hope  for  better  times  and  a  glimpse  of  sunshine, 
I  tried  to  look  into  the  sources  of  all  our  existing  information 
on  the  country  and  the  people  so  long  and  successfully  secluded 
from  the  inquiring  European,  and  soon  now  to  be  laid  open  to 
all  comers. 

'To  let  the  reader  see  Japan  with  the  successive  eyes  of  all 
those  who  have  visited  it' — 'Japan  as  it  was  and  is,'  the  de- 
clared object  of  more  than  one  of  the  recent  compilations  on 
Japan,  is  a  very  laudable  one,  no  doubt,  but  who  is  to  write 
the  book  ?  '  Japan  as  it  was  and  is'  must  obviously  be  for 
other  hands  than  those  of  writers  who  merely  compile  in  New 
York  or  London  from  what  has  been  .already  written  by  the 
few  attaches  of  the  Dutch  fnctory,  who  at  long  intervals  g.ave 
to  the  public  the  results  of  their  very  limited  opportunities  of 
personal  observation.    Something  of  what  Japan  is,  and  prom- 


66  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  II. 

ises  to  be  in  its  connection  with  foreign  nations,  I  hope  to  tell 
as  I  go  on ;  but,  in  the  mean  while,  let  me  fill  up  the  dreary 
blank  of  a  voyage  to  the  coast,  through  mist,  and  rain,  and  baf- 
fling winds,  by  a  sketch  of  Japan  and  the  Japanese,  if  not  as 
they  were^  at  least  as  they  appeared  and  have  been  already 
painted  by  others,  with  more  or  less  of  accuracy,  according  to 
their  power  and  opportunities. 

The  sources  from  which  such  information  is  to  be  drawn  are 
not  very  numerous.  The  letters  of  some  of  the  early  Portu- 
guese and  Spanish  missionaries  before  their  final  expulsion 
from  the  country  in  1642  ;  the  pilgrimages  or  voyages  of  vari- 
ous navigatoi's,  compiled  by  Purchas,  and  embodying  much  of 
the  information  accessible  two  centuries  ago ;  lastly,  the  con- 
tributions from  chiefs  and  medical  officers  of  the  Dutch  factory, 
complete  the  list.  And  the  last  of  these  were  shut  up  in  De- 
cima,  except  during  a  journey  every  three  or  four  years  to  the 
capital,  well  guarded  and  caged  in  their  '  norimons'  or  sedan- 
chairs — cages,  indeed,  from  the  windows  of  which  they  might 
obtain,  if  they  could  stoop  low  enough,  a  sort  of  telescopic 
view  of  the  country  they  were  passing  through.  The  writers 
have  generally  been  the  medical  men  attached  to  the  factory, 
at  intervals  of  half  a  century  from  each  other.  First  Kcemp- 
fer,  then  Thunberg,  and  lastly  Siebold,  still  living,  and  for  some 
time  in  the  service  of  the  Dutch  Government — all  foreigners, 
Swedish  or  German. 

Japan,  as  it  appeared  to  them,  in  its  government  and  insti- 
tutions— no  longer  the  New  Atlantis  which  'Marco  Millione,* 
of  Venetian  memory,  had  two  centuries  earlier  invested  with 
strange  '  wealth  of  gold,  and  pearls,  and  precious  stones' — was 
still  to  them  a  land  with  a  certain  charm  attaching  to  it,  from 
the  mystery  in  which  the  governing  powers  enveloped  both  the 
country  and  the  people.  Then,  as  more  recently,  there  was  a 
strange  proneness  to  look  upon  all  they  were  allowed  to  see 
through  a  screen  and  by  stealth,  as  something  wondrous  and 
Utopian.  Here  especially  it  seems  to  have  been  'omne  igno- 
tum  pro  magnifico.'  Like  Don  Quixote,  whose  imagination 
invested  a  road-side  inn,  and  its  serving-wenches  of  question- 
able repute,  with  attributes  of  romance  which  left  nothing  to 
be  desired,  writers  on  Japan  have  hitherto  seen  every  thing 
through  highly  colored  glasses,  and  generally  of  a  Claude  Lor- 
raine hue.  They  remind  one  of  Dr.  Pangloss,  M'ho  '  likes  every 
thing  and  every  body,  and  believes  every  thing  is  the  very  best, 
in  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds.'  Some  difficulty  may,  there- 
fore, naturally  be  looked  for,  in  identifying  the  people  and 
scenes,  when  the  hard,  practical  undei'standing  of  the  nineteenth 


Chap.  H.]        A  STRAIGHTFORWARD  COURSE  BEST.  el 

century  is  brought  to  bear  on  the  same  features  and  institu- 
tions. 

I  felt  we  should  soon  be  in  the  way  of  knowing  in  sober 
truth  this  modern  Utopia  as  it  really  is — how  the  Empire  is 
constituted  and  governed,  how  the  people  live,  and  work,  and 
trade ;  and,  though  last,  not  least,  what  they  are  likely  to  want 
which  Manchester  or  Birmingham  can  supply.  Wiiat  they 
are  in  a  position  to  give  us  in  return  was  not  the  least  inter- 
esting part  of  the  question,  despite  the  phraseology  of  proto- 
cols and  treaties,  and  the  '  disinterestedness'  of  Treaty  Powers, 
of  which  the  less  said  the  better  perhaps.  Nations  do  not  gen- 
erally go  to  the  expense  or  trouble  of  making  treaties  without 
a  due  regard  to  their  own  interests ;  and  although  we  have 
heard  very  recently  of  nations  making  war  for  an  idea,  it  sel- 
dom turns  out  to  be  an  abstract  idea,  and  is  apt  to  take  a  very 
solid  form  in  the  concrete. 

Has  the  universal  experience  of  mankind  left  this  lesson  yet 
to  be  learned  by  any  race  or  nation.  East  or  West  ?  I  should 
say,  from  no  short  experience  of  Eastern  races,  that  these,  of 
all  others,  are  least  likely  to  be  imposed  upon  by  pretensions 
to  a  disinterestedness  that  has  no  real  existence,  and  that 
sound  policy  would  dictate  a  perfectly  straightforward  course 
in  all  our  dealings  with  them.  We  are  too  apt,  perhaps,  to 
treat  them  as  children,  and  tell  them  nursery  stories,  forgetting 
that  they  have  long  outgrown  the  age  when  these  are  calcu- 
lated to  raise  any  thing  but  a  smile  of  incredulity,  and  sink 
deeper  in  their  hearts  a  conviction  of  our  want  of  truth  and 
honesty.  Considering  their  natural  tendency  to  distrust,  this, 
to  say  the  least,  is  superfluous,  and  without  much  sense  or  wis- 
dom to  recommend  it.  Those  who  have  lived  longest  in  the 
East,  and  had  the  largest  intercourse  with  all  ranks,  best  know, 
perhaps,  that  the  first  element  of  success  and  influence,  among 
both  rulers  and  people,  is  honesty  of  purpose — never  belied  by 
evasion  or  subterfuge,  but  carried  out  with  the  courage  that 
dictates  truth  and  even  frankness,  far  oftener  than  the  uniniti- 
ated are  willing  to  believe. 

You  tell  an  Eastern  potentate  or  official  that  squadrons  have 
been  put  in  motion,  and  ambassadors  sent  from  the  other  side 
of  the  globe  in  the  purest  disinterestedness,  desiring  only  to 
confer  benefits,  and  enter  into  trade  for  their  advantage,  or  the 
advancement  of  civilization ;  and  while  he  pays  you  back  in 
coin  of  the  same  alloy,  always  at  his  command,  telling  you  '  so 
it  must  be,' '  for  all  men  are  brothers,'  and  the  '  great  Buddha,' 
or*Fo,'  or 'Allah' is  over  all,  he  will  bow  or  salaam  you  out, 
with  the  profoundest  contempt  for  your  wisdom,  in  thinking 
that  he  could  be  imposed  upon  by  such  transparent  lies  1 


68  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  xChap.  IL 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  we  may  teach  the  Japanese  both  to 
respect  and  trust  us  by  making  no  vain  pretensions  to  this 
apocryphal  benevolence  and  disinterestedness  in  nations  or  in 
governments.  All  permanent  relations  of  amity  between  dif- 
ferent countries  must,  in  these  days  at  least,  be  based  on  mu- 
tual interests  or  advantages ;  and  any  attempt  to  build  them 
up,  or  sustain  them  on  any  other  foundation  than  this,  only 
ends  in  failure. 

History  often  furnishes  plain  lessons  of  morality  as  well  as 
policy  to  those  who  can  read  aright ;  but  it  is  not  often  that 
they  are  written  in  such  clear  and  unmistakable  characters  as 
those  supplied  by  China  and  Japan.  And,  curiously  enough, 
there  is  between  the  two  countries,  isolated  as  they  have  al- 
ways been  from  each  other,  but  with  which  Europeans  had 
contemporaneously  in  the  sixteenth  century  such  free  and  cor- 
dial intercourse,  a  parallelism  so  perfect,  in  all  that  took  place 
with  each — in  the  events,  their  remote  and  immediate  causes, 
and  the  final  effects,  no  less  than  in  the  periods  and  successive 
phases — that  it  would  almost  seem  as  though  the  lesson  to  be 
conveyed  to  mankind  for  all  future  time  had  been  deemed  too 
important  to  be  given  only  once,  and  was  therefore  twice  re- 
peated with  different  races,  and  under  analogous  conditions,  to 
make  it  more  indelible  and  impressive.  So  let  us  turn  over 
the  pages  and  read  as  we  run,  for  the  handwriting  on  the  wall 
of  Belshazzar's  palace  was  not  more  plain ;  and  as  the  mist  is 
thickening  around,  and  no  land  still  can  be  seen,  while  a  tum- 
bling sea  makes  all  efforts  at  the  perpendicular  vain  and  illu- 
sory, we  shall  certainly  have  traversed  the  three  centuries 
which  lie  behind  us  before  there  is  a  chance  of  walking  through 
Nagasaki. 

When  the  thi'ee  Portuguese  adventurers,  under  the  guid- 
ance of  their  Chinese-junk  captain — without  any  credentials, 
and  all  of  doubtful  antecedents — first  made  their  appearance, 
driven  by  stress  of  weather,  rather  than  their  own  good  will, 
to  an  unknown  coast,  it  proved  to  be  that  part  of  Japan  own- 
ing the  sovereignty  of  the  Prince  of  Bungo  ;  and  we  find  the 
Japanese,  though  vigilant,  manifested  no  reluctance  to  admit 
the  strangers.  They  showed  them  much  kindness  even,  and 
no  obstacle  was  interposed  to  a  free  trade  with  the  inhabitants, 
in  the  interchange  of  such  commodities  as  they  had  with  them. 
The  natives  and  strangers  were  ultimately  so  well  pleased  with 
each  other  that,  by  an  arrangement  with  the  Prince  of  Bungo, 
a  Portuguese  ship  was  to  be  sent  annually, '  laden  with  xooolen 
cloths,  furs,  silks,  taffetas,  and  other  commodities  needed  by  the 
Japanese.^  This  was  the  commencement  of  European  inter- 
course and  trade,  carrying  us  back  to  1642-5. 


Chap.  II.]  PROGRESS  OF  ROMANISM.  6& 

A  few  years  later,  Hansiro,  a  Japanese  noble,  fled  his  coun- 
try for  '  an  act  of  homicide'  (having  run  some  fellow-subject 
through  the  body,  no  doubt),  and  took  refuge  in  Goa.  Tliere 
he  Avas  converted  and  baptized. 

This  proved  the  second  link  in  the  chain ;  for,  being  enter- 
prising and  shrewd,  and  animated  probably  with  the  hot  zeal 
of  a  new  convert,  he  soon  persuaded  the  merchants  of  Goa, 
nothing  loth  we  may  imagine,  that  they  might  establish  a 
profitable  trade  with  Japan,  while  to  the  Jesuit  fathers  he 
promised  a  rich  harvest  of  souls.  He  obviously  preached  to 
willing  ears  in  both  directions,  and  foremost  among  his  listen- 
ers was  the  Jesuit  apostle  of  the  East,  Francis  Xavier,  who  had 
recently  arrived. 

A  ship  was  forthwith  loaded  with  goods  and  presents  where- 
with to  commence  a  permanent  trade.  For  the  accomplish- 
ment of  spiritual  objects,  Francis  Xavier  himself  embarked 
with  the  Japanese  refugee,  and  a  number  of  his  order  as  mis- 
sionaries. A  goodly  freight — Jesuit  fathers  to  win  souls — 
merchants  to  make  money :  merchandise  for  the  people  and 
their  carnal  wants — presents  to  propitiate  the  authorities — all 
were  duly  provided ;  and  thus  auspiciously  began  this  second 
chapter. 

On  arriving  at  Bungo  they  were  received  with  open  arms, 
and  not  the  slightest  opposition  was  made  to  the  introduction 
of  either  trade  or  religion.  No  system  of  exclusion  then  ex- 
isted ;  and  such  was  the  spirit  of  toleration,  that  the  Govern- 
ment made  no  objection  to  the  open  preaching  of  Christianity. 
Indeed,  the  Portuguese  were  freely  permitted  to  go  where 
they  pleased  in  the  empire,  and  to  travel  from  one  end  of  it  to 
the  other.  '  The  people  freely  bought  the  goods  of  the  traders, 
and  listened  to  the  teachings  of  the  missionaries.' 

And  a  little  later  we  find  it  said  that '  if  the  feudal  princes 
were  ever  at  any  time  ready  to  quarrel  with  the  merchant,  it 
was  because  he  would  not  come  to  their  ports.'  Passing  on- 
ward a  few  years,  we  find  the  Christianity  of  the  Jesuit  fathers 
spreading  rapidly  and  universally ;  princes  and  rulers,  nobles 
and  plebeians,  Avomen  and  children,  of  all  ranks  and  in  large 
numbers,  embraced  the  faith.  Churches,  Hospitals,  Convents, 
and  Schools,  were  scattered  over  the  country.  Intermarriages 
between  the  Portuguese  and  wealthy  Japanese  were  frequent. 
So  little  had  Christianity  to  fear  from  the  disposition  of  the 
governing  powers,  or  the  temper  of  the  people,  that  the  only 
opposition  they  encountered  in  these  early  years  of  promise 
and  fruitful  labor  came  from  the  Bonzes  or  native  priesthood ; 
and  they  seem  to  have  been  powerless.     For  we  read  that, 


70  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  II. 

feeling  their  religion  and  influence  discredited  by  the  rapid 
adoption  of  a  rival  and  hostile  creed,  they  appealed  to  the  em- 
peror '  to  banish  the  Jesuit  and  Romish  monks ;'  and  it  is  re- 
lated '  that,  annoyed  by  their  importunities,  he  asked  them  how 
many  different  religions  there  were  in  Japan.'  They  answer- 
ed '  thirty-five.'  '  Well,'  said  the  emperor,  '  when  thirty-five 
religions  can  be  tolerated,  we  can  easily  bear  with  thirty-six ; 
leave  the  strangers  in  peace.' 

After  forty  years,  the  Roman  Catholic  faith  was  in  such  high 
esteem,  and  had  such  undisputed  possession  of  the  field  (no 
Protestant  element  having  at  that  time  appeared  on  the  scene), 
that  a  Japanese  embassy,  composed  of  three  princes,  was  sent 
to  Rome  to  Pope  Gregory  XIIL,  with  letters  and  valuable  pres- 
ents. Their  reception  at  Rome  was  not  only  magnificent,  but 
their  whole  progress  through  Spain  and  Italy  was  one  contin- 
ued ovation.  '  A  nation  of  thirty  millions  of  civilized  and  in- 
telligent people  had  been  won  from  the  heathen !'  Great  in- 
deed was  the  joy  and  triumph ;  and  this  was  the  culminating 
point  of  the  Church's  success. 

In  that  same  hour,  while  the  artillery  of  St.  Angelo,  answered 
by  the  guns  of  the  Vatican,  was  thundering  a  welcome  to  the 
Japanese  ambassadors,  an  edict  had  gone  forth  from  the  Ku- 
bo-sama,  or  sovereign  lord  of  Japan,  banishing  all  Catholic  mis- 
sionaries within  six  months,  on  pain  of  death ;  and  ordering 
all  the  crosses  to  be  thrown  down,  and  aU  the  churches  to  be 
razed  to  the  ground. 

When  the  Jesuit  Superior,  P^re  Yalignani,  returned  with 
the  ambassadors,  after  an  absence  of  eight  years  (so  long  had 
it  taken  to  exchange  amenities  across  distant  seas  and  foreign 
lands  in  those  days),  he  found  this  edict  in  force,  and  partially 
carried  out.  The  old  King  of  Bun  go,  the  great  protector  of 
the  Jesuits,  was  dead,  his  successor  ill  disposed.  All  their 
Christian  communities,  schools,  and  hospitals  had  been  sup- 
pressed, and  the  missionaries  dispersed,  expelled,  or  forced 
into  concealment.  There  are  few  more  striking  examples  of 
the  instability  of  human  affairs ;  and  it  must  have  been  a  cruel 
blow  to  Valignani,  as  the  Superior  of  the  Order,  so  long  happy 
and  successful  in  all  his  efforts. 

We  enter  on  the  third  and  last  phase  of  this  eventful  history. 
The  first  edict  for  the  banishment  of  the  missionaries  was  pub- 
lished in  June,  1687.  All  that  follows  is  but  a  narrative  of 
partially  interrupted  persecutions,  the  decay  of  trade,  increas- 
ing restrictions,  and  at  last  the  expulsion  of  all,  amid  scenes  of 
martyrdom  and  sweeping  destruction.  In  the  year  16.'^5,  the 
Portuguese  were  shut  up  in  Decima,  and  only  allowed  to  trade 


Chap.  II.  j  CHANGE  OF  POLICY.  71 

there,  amidst,  it  is  said,  the  jeers  and  derision  of  their  Dutch 
rivals. 

A  year  or  two  later,  the  fall  of  the  last  Christian  strong-hold, 
Simabara,  battered  in  breach  by  the  Dutch  artillery,  under 
Kockebecker,  marked  the  final  catastrophe,  and  the  close  of 
all  relations  but  the  miserable  ones  allowed  to  the  Dutch  fac- 
tory, which  an  avenging  Nemesis  transferred  to  the  prison 
bounds  of  their  ruined  rivals  in  Decima.  Since  that  date  until 
recent  treaties  were  signed,  no  Japanese  had  been  allowed  to 
leave  his  island  home,  nor  foreigners  to  land.  All  Avho  had 
been  cast  on  shore,  or  made  the  attempt,  had  either  been  killed 
or  imprisoned.  Great  must  be  the  power  wielded  by  the  rul- 
ers of  this  strange  country,  thus,  for  two  centuries,  to  succeed 
in  preventing  the  departure  of  a  single  Japanese  subject !  Yet 
such  appears  to  be  the  fact,  though  before  this  edict  they  were 
enterprising  sailors,  and,  if  we  may  believe  the  records  of  the 
period,  not  only  traded  with  the  Indian  archipelago,  but  even 
extended  their  voyages  as  far  as  South  America.  Thus  briefly 
we  have  the  whole  history  of  European  intercourse  (for  the 
few  attempts  made  by  the  British  and  French  to  take  part 
were  too  feeble  and  interrupted  to  be  worthy  of  much  note), 
and  two  questions  press  themselves  on  the  attention  of  all  who 
read.  Whence  the  seemingly  sudden  and  violent  change  in 
the  policy  of  the  Japanese  ?  And,  was  it  sudden  in  reality,  or 
of  slow  and  insidious  growth — which  only  came  suddenly  upon 
Europeans,  because  they  blinded  themselves  to  the  signs  of 
change  and  indications  of  danger,  otherwise  plainly  enough 
to  be  discerned,  had  any  one  looked  with  clear  and  intelligent 
eye  ? 

The  accounts  of  the  period  ai'e  full  of  details  of  feuds  between 
the  different  monastic  orders ;  of  the  pride,  avarice,  and  over- 
bearing arrogance  of  the  priests ;  the  overreaching  and  insa- 
tiable cupidity  of  the  Portuguese  and  Spanish  merchants, 
which  latter  charges  are  not  even  limited  to  the  laymen.  But, 
admitting  all  these  causes  to  have  been  in  operation,  and  ex- 
ercising the  influence  which  belongs  to  them,  it  is  impossible 
to  doubt  that  other  and  more  profound  causes  of  distrust  and 
dissatisfaction  chiefly  moved  Taiko-saraa,  when  laying  the 
foundation  of  his  usurped  empire,  to  irreconcilable  enmity,  di- 
rected more  especially,  if  not  altogether  and  exclusively,  against 
the  Padres  of  every  order,  and  their  converts.  One  cause  of 
such  enmity  lies,  indeed,  on  the  surface. 

The  great  success  of  the  Jesuits  and  missionaries  of  various 
monastic  orders  had  been  based,  in  part  at  least,  on  the  shill- 
ing sands  of  political  favor  and  influence  with  the  feudatory 


*J2  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  II. 

princes  in  their  several  territories ;  a  turbulent  race,  as  was 
the  same  class  in  the  days  of  the  early  French  and  English 
kings :  not  always  at  peace  with  each  other,  and  often  in  league 
against  their  Suzerain.  One  of  the  most  obvious  conditions 
of  strength  to  the  latter  was  the  abasement  and  weakening 
of  the  nobles,  Taiko-sama,  in  order  to  strengthen  and  render 
hereditary  his  sovereign  power,  necessarily  therefore  set  him- 
self to  this  task,  as  did  Louis  XI.,  and,  later,  Richelieu  and 
Louis  XIV.,  in  France. 

Whatever  was  identified  with  the  Feudal  chiefs  could  not 
fail  to  share  the  fate  of  an  order  doomed  to  destruction  or  hu- 
miliation. While  the  Jesuit,  therefore,  sought  to  promote  the 
objects  of  his  mission  by  favor  of  princes  and  court  influence, 
and,  for  a  time,  reaped  great  fruit  therefrom,  these  same  Feu- 
datory princes  wei'e  looking  to  force  and  intrigue  to  advance 
•their  own  interests,  and  uphold  their  cause  against  an  ambitious 
and  successful  general,  who  had  seized  the  quasi  sceptre.  That 
both  the  princes  and  their  proteges,  the  missionaries,  should  be 
involved  in  a  common  ruin,  was  in  the  nature  of  things  to  be 
exi^ected,  and  indeed  inevitable.  If  one  feudatory  prince  pro- 
tected Christianity,  it  was  equally  open  to  his  successor  or  rival 
to  attack  and  persecute  it.  The  spiritual  guide  who  had  put 
his  trust  in  Princes  and  the  Sword,  found  all  the  aid  of  man 
impotent  to  save  when  the  hour  of  trial  and  persecution  came. 
They  had  built  upon  a  mundane  foundation  with  the  aid  of 
sword  and  buckler,  and  by  the  same  was  their  ruin  efiected. 

But  beneath  all  this  lay  other  causes,  wider  and  more  pene- 
trating, as  well  as  more  permanent  in  their  influence.  Another 
and  far  more  fatal  element  of  destruction  had  been  slowly  but 
surely  preparing  the  way  for  the  final  catastrophe  from  the  be- 
ginning— undermining  the  very  ground  upon  which  the  whole 
spiritual  edifice  was  built,  whether  Jesuit  or  Augustinian,  Fran- 
ciscan or  Dominican,  S^janiard  or  Portuguese,  fashioned  the 
walls. 

The  determining  cause  of  the  downfall  and  utter  destruc- 
tion of  the  Roman  Church  in  Japan  is  to  be  sought  in  the  pre- 
tension to  a  spiritual  supremacy,  which  is  but  another  name  for 
the  monopoly  of  power,  since  all  that  is  political  or  secular 
must  bt)W  to  God's  viceregent  on  earth,  who  claims  the  right 
to  bind  and  to  loosen,  to  absolve  subjects  of  their  oath  and 
fealty,  and  dethrone  kings  by  his  edict.  This  pretension  to 
supremacy  and  papal  infallibility — to  a  power  as  unlimited  as 
it  is  irresponsible — has  been  Avoven  into  the  very  texture  and 
fabric  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  has  long  been  considered 
inseparable  from  it. 


Chap.  II.J  tliGAClES  FROM  THE  tAST.  73 

The  Japanese  rulers,  who  during  nearly  fifty  years  success- 
ively never  relaxed  in  their  jiolicy  to  extirpate  out  of  the  land 
all  trace  of  the  missionaries  and  their  teaching,  and  were  de- 
terred by  no  difficulties,  no  sacrifice  of  life  or  commercial  ad- 
vantages,,and  never  stopped  until  their  object  was  finally  ac- 
complished, clearly  saw  that  between  them  and  such  teachers 
there  could  be  neither  peace  nor  truce.  The  two  systems  were 
necessarily  antagonistic  and  mutually  destructive.  The  Siogun 
must  veil  his  power  to  the  higher  pretensions  of  the  Pope  and 
the  priests ;  hold  it  from  their  hands,  liable  to  be  dispossessed 
at  their  pleasure,  or  be  engaged  in  interminable  conflict,  all  the 
more  dangerous  that  spiritual  weapons  could  be  brought  to 
bear,  as  well  as  the  arm  of  flesh,  by  his  adversaries  of  the  cowl 
and  rosary.  Taiko-sama,  a  man  of  no  ordinary  gifts  apparent- 
ly, who  first  engaged  in  a  war  to  the  death,  and  issued  the 
edict  of  extermination,  must  indeed  have  been  something  more 
than  dull  not  to  have  his  doubts  raised  and  his  worst  conclu- 
sions verified  by  the  tenor  of  the  letters  to  the  Pope,  given  by 
the  three  Feudal  princes  to  their  ambassadors. 

Hear  how  they  run.     Thus  writes  the  Prince  of  Bungo ; 

'  To  him  who  ought  to  be  adored  and  who  holds  the  place 
of  the  King  of  Heaven,  the  great  and  very  holy  Pope ;'  and, 
in  the  body  of  the  letter,  he  continues  in  the  same  strain : 
*Your  holiness  (who  holds  the  place  of  God  on  earth).' 

The  King  of  Arima  addressed  himself  '  to  the  very  great 
and  holy  lord  whom  I  adore,  because  he  holds  on  earth  the 
place  of  God  himself.' 

The  Prince  of  Omara  goes,  if  possible,  farther :  '  With  hands 
raised  toward  heaven,  and  sentiments  of  profound  admiration, 
I  adore  the  most  holy  Pope,  who  holds  the  place  of  God  on 
earth.' 

With  what  feelings  must  Taiko-sama  have  spelled  over  these 
acts  of  homage  to  an  alien  sovereign  by  three  of  the  leading 
feudatory  princes  of  the  empire,  when  the  death  of  Nobunan- 
ga  in  1582,  the  sovereign  friend  of  the  missionaries,  threw  the 
reins  of  power  into  his  hands?  There  is  an  absurd  story  told 
of  the  Siogun's  jealousy  having  first  been  roused  by  the  indis- 
creet answer  of  a  Spaniard,  who,  on  being  asked  how  his  mas- 
ter had  managed  to  possess  himself  of  half  the  world,  replied  : 
*He  commenced  by  sending  priests,  who  Avin  over  the  people, 
and,  when  this  is  done,  his  troops  are  dispatched  to  join  the 
Christian,  and  the  conquest  is  easy  and  complete.'  I  say  it  is 
absurd,  because,  in  the  first  place,  the  account  of  the  process 
then  in  vogue  is  much  too  near  the  truth  to  have  been  openly 
told  by  one  of  the  chief  agents ;  and,  next,  it  was  too  palpably 


74  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  U. 

calculated  to  lead  to  the  expulsion  of  the  narrator  and  all  his 
race.  Nor  was  any  such  plain-spoken  traveler  needed.  Taiko- 
saraa  must  have  been  blind  not  to  have  seen  whither  the 
Church  of  Rome  was  tending,  and  how  irreconcilable  were 
its  pretensions  and  his  own. 

Another  law  than  that  of  the  Japanese  empire  had  been  in- 
troduced, and  other  Rulers  and  administrators  than  those 
nominated  by  either  Mikado  or  Siogun  (the  titular  and  the 
effective  rulers  of  Japan)  were  in  full  exercise  of  their  func- 
tions, claiming  from  Japanese  subjects,  once  become  converts, 
fealty  and  implicit  obedience  to  the  Church's  commands — an 
obedience  which  might  at  any  time  be  turned  against  the  au- 
thority and  rule  of  the  territorial  Sovereign.  There  was  noth- 
ing very  far-fetched  in  the  conclusion,  or  monstrous  in  the  as- 
sumption that  such  was  the  tendency  of  the  Church  polity. 
That  same  sovereign  of  Spain,  Avhose  dominions,  Taiko-sama 
heard,  had  been  extended  over  half  the  world  by  priestly  aid, 
had  actually  moved  the  Pope  to  issue  a  bull  to  dethrone  the 
Queen  of  England  in  favor  of  another  pretender  to  the  crown, 
to  raise  up  conspirators  among  her  subjects,  and  release  them 
from  all  oaths  or  ties  of  allegiance. 

This  and  no  other  cause,  it  is  impossible  to  doubt,  led  to  the 
final  expulsion  of  every  European,  the  extermination  of  every 
Christian  convert,  and  the  closing  of  every  port  for  two  cen- 
turies. The  annihilation  of  commerce  and  material  interests 
was  merely  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  close  connection 
that  had  subsisted  between  the  professors  of  religion  and  the 
traders,  taken  in  connection  with  their  common  nationality. 

And  this,  now  that  the  Japanese,  yielding  to  major  force 
and  an  obvious  necessity,  have  entered  into  Treaties  with  for- 
eign powers,  will  undoubtedly  still  sow  distrust  and  misgivings 
in  the  minds  of  the  Japanese  rulers.  And  how  should  it  be 
otherwise  ?  The  Church  of  Rome  has  undergone  no  change, 
neither  have  the  pretensions  to  supreme  and  undisputed  pow- 
er in  the  Mikado  and  Tycoon  (however  shared  between  them) 
been  modified.  Why  should  we  expect  the  Japanese  to  change 
in  their  estimate  of  the  true  tendency  of  the  Church  system 
and  doctrines  ?  The  repugnance  which  the  Protestant  sover- 
eign feels  to  hand  over  to  the  keeping  of  a  spiritual  confessor 
and  director  the  consciences  of  his  subjects  and  their  individ- 
ual right  of  judgment,  may  well  be  allowed  to  the  Rulers  of  a 
heathen  people,  in  no  degree  inferior  to  many  European  popu- 
lations in  intelligence,  wealth,  and  industry,  and  far  before 
many  in  their  long-cherished  and  well-defended  national  inde- 
pendence. 


Chap.  II.]  WAENINGS  FOR  THE  FUTURE.  V6 

If  these  matters  regarded  only  the  past,  I  should  scarcely 
have  introduced  the  subject.  But,  in  plain  truth,  they  are 
things  which  have  sprung  again  into  life  under  recent  treaties 
— actualities  which  we  must  be  prepared  to  meet  face  to  face, 
and  from  day  to  day,  contributing  as  they  will  in  no  slight  de- 
gree to  the  difficulties  and  complications  naturally  to  be  antic- 
ipated in  the  renewal  of  long-interrupted  relations,  between 
two  races  so  entirely  distinct  as  the  European  and  Japanese, 
and  one  of  these  so  long  in  hostile  isolation. 

As  to  the  leading  causes,  in  mercantile  affairs,  of  deprecia- 
tion and  injury,  which  two  centuries  ago  may  have  helped  the 
religious  grounds  of  quarrel,  instead  of  forming,  as  they  might 
and  ought  to  have  formed,  a  counterpoise  to  stay  the  relentless 
march  of  persecution,  little  more  need  be  said.  Inordinate 
cupidity,  an  overreaching  spirit  of  gain,  not  content  with  fair 
and  mutually  advantageous  terras  of  exchange,  may  make  a 
few  men  suddenly  rich,  but  never  can  build  up  a  permanent 
trade  of  national  importance.  More  than  this,  it  is  very  evi- 
dent no  trade  can  assume  those  characters  of  largeness  and 
permanence  with  mutual  benefit  in  the  results  (all  conditions 
essential  to  the  development  of  national  commerce),  where  one 
of  the  countries  must  pay  for  all  its  imports  in  the  precious 
metals.  Gold  and  silver  may  well  be  treated  as  commodities 
in  the  commerce  of  European  nations,  because,  though  some 
imports  may,  by  each,  be  paid  for  in  the  precious  metals,  the 
bulk  taken  will  always  be  in  exchange  for  a  native  produce; 
while  some  of  this,  in  turn,  may  be  bought  by  other  countries 
for  gold,  and  thus  any  great  drain  or  displacement  of  gold  and 
silver  is  prevented.  It  has  not  hitherto,  or  always  been  so,  in 
the  dealings  of  Western  countries  with  the  East.  This  '  leak- 
ing out'  of  the  silver  in  China,  of  the  '  bones  and  marrow  of 
the  land'  in  Japan  (to  use  their  own  characteristic  phraseolo- 
gy), has  in  each  country  raised  a  strong  feeling  of  hostility  to 
all  foreign  trade  among  the  ruling  classes  in  both.  The  expe- 
rience of  the  past,  therefore,  seems  strongly  to  enforce  this  one 
lesson,  that  if  we  would  see  foreign  trade  popular  in  Japan, 
and  placed  under  conditions  of  healthy  development,  we  must 
find  among  their  raw  or  manufactured  products  other  articles 
of  exchange  than  the  precious  metals.  The  quantities  of  these 
reported  to  have  been  shipped  by  the  Portuguese,  and  later 
by  the  Dutch  in  the  old  period,  is  something  incredible.  They 
were  enormous,  however,  beyond  doubt,  and  furnish  a  plain 
proof,  first,  that  there  must  have  been  large  and  productive 
mines,  and,  next,  that  a  very  disproportionate  value  must  have 
been  exacted  for  the  European  goods.    The  large  and  increas- 


16  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  II. 

ing  drain  on  the  precious  metals,  coupled  with  the  small  re- 
turns in  European  fabrics,  there  can  be  no  question,  must  have 
greatly  disgusted  the  Japanese,  rendered  foreign  trade  unpop- 
ular, and  formed  the  fittest  preparation  for  the  edict  closing  the 
country  to  foreigners  altogether.  Thus  it  is  that  by  an  over- 
reaching spirit  we  '  o'erleap  and  fall  on  t'other  side.'  Where 
individuals  are  allowed  to  seek  their  own  profit  per  fas  et  ne- 
fas^  it  needs  no  prophet  to  tell  that  the  ruin  of  all  who  come 
after  them  is  the  only  end  that  can  be  anticipated.  One  set 
of  traders  may  be  enriched,  but  a  nation  requires  that  the 
goose  which  lays  the  golden  eggs  should  not  be  killed  for  the 
purpose,  but  sedulously  nurtured  and  cared  for,  in  the  interest 
of  succeeding  generations.  Fortunately,  one  rock  on  which 
all  the  traders  of  a  former  time  in  Japan  made  wreck  has  been 
removed  out  of  their  path.  Merchants  of  diflferent  countries 
may  indeed  vilify  each  other  as  in  olden  times,  if  it  pleases 
them,  unwarned  by  the  obvious  depreciation  of  all^  which  was 
the  only  final  result ;  but  there  is  some  consolation  in  the 
thought  that  the  strongest  motive  for  such  a  line  of  action  is 
removed.  Monopolies  of  the  trade  of  any  country  are  happily 
no  longer  possibilities,  and  only  to  be  numbered  with  things 
of  the  past,  which  no  blindness  of  the  many  or  selfishness  of 
the  few  can  ever  resuscitate.  Moreover,  in  the  present  day 
competition  secures  even  the  less  civilized  of  Eastern  races 
from  Western  greed  and  extortionate  prices.  Nor  are  they 
in  danger  now  of  taking  more  of  our  manufactures  than  we 
are  willing  to  take  of  their  produce.  The  balance  of  trade  is 
likely  to  be  quite  the  other  way  at  first,  if  not  for  a  long  period 
to  come.* 

In  glancing  over  the  history  of  the  Past,  one  can  not  avoid 
being  struck  with  the  important  part  which  accidents,  and  cir- 
cumstances often  seemingly  the  most  fortuitous  and  trivial, 
played  in  the  first  discovery  of  Japan,  no  less  than  its  subse- 
quent relations  with  Europe. 

To  Marco  Paolo's  imprisonment  at  Genoa,  after  his  return 

*  Tliis  has  been  abundantly  verified  in  the  course  of  the  three  years  past. 
The  Japanese  have  bought  little — next  to  nothing — and  that  little  only  in 
exchange.  The  foreign  trade  of  a  million  sterling  annually  which  has  been 
created,  has  consisted  chiefly  of  exports  of  Japanese  produce,  Silk  and  Tea, 
the  greater  part  of  which  has  been  paid  for  in  silver,  imported  into  the  coun- 
try for  that  purpose,  in  the  absence  of  any  considerable  demand  for  Euro- 
pean manufactures.  Precisely  the  same  results  are  to  be  seen  in  the  For- 
eign trade  with  China  of  late  years,  notwithstanding  the  vast  increase  in 
the  import  of  opium,  from  7000  chests  to  70,000  in  less  than  a  quarter  of  a 
century.  We  take  twice  as  much  tpa  r.nd  silk  as  they  are  willing  to  take  of 
manufactured  goods  and  opium  combined. 


Chap.  II.]  ACCIDENTS  AND  DESTINIES.  77 

from  China,  we  owe  the  stirring  narrative  Avhich,  200  years 
later,  fired  the  imaguiatioii  of  Columbus,  and  sent  him  west- 
ward in  quest  of  new  worlds.  And  thus  to  dreams  of  Japan 
we  are  indebted  in  no  small  degree  for  the  discovery  of  Amer- 
ica in  the  sixteenth  century !  To  a  half  piratical,  half  trading 
expedition  of  three  Portuguese  adventurers  in  a  Chinese  junk, 
driven  they  knew  not  whither  by  stress  of  weather,  is  due  the 
first  discovery  of  Japan  itself;  and  to  the  escape  of  Hansiro, 
and  the  'homicide'  which  was  the  cause  of  his  flight,  the  first 
introduction  of  Christianity  is  to  be  traced.  Finally,  to  Will 
Adams's  imprisonment  in  the  cells  of  Lisbon,  and  his  frequent 
colloquy  with  fellow  -  prisoners  (Portuguese  sailors  who  had 
been  in  Japan),  the  Dutch  and  English  are  both  indebted  for 
their  first  introduction,  and  commencement  of  commercial  re- 
lations with  the  country.  Not  only  accidents,  but  crime,  per- 
sonal misfortunes  and  calamities,  homicide,  and  imprisonment, 
seem  to  have  played  by  far  the  most  important  part,  and  to 
have  been  the  very  pivots  on  which  great  events,  entirely  hid- 
den fi'om  the  actors — were  made  to  turn.  They  were  blind 
carvers  of  a  nation's  destiny,  when  most  exclusively  bent  on 
fashioning  their  own. 

One  more  noteworthy  fact  and  strange  coincidence  before  I 
try  again  to  peer  through  mist  and  rain  for  the  long-desired 
shores  of  Nagasaki  Bay,  while  Simabara,  the  tomb  of  Christi- 
anity in  Japan,  is  close  at  hand,  suggesting  the  coincidence  in 
question.  In  that  same  year,  when  the  last  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  converts  were  buried  under  the  ruins  of  the  captured 
city,  or  hurled  from  the  rocky  islet  of  Pappenberg,  in  the  Bay 
of  Nagasaki,  a  few  exiles  landed  at  Plymouth,  in  the  newly- 
discovered  continent,  where  they  were  destined  to  plant  the 
seeds  of  a  Protestant  faith,  and  a  great  Protestant  empire. 
Thus  strangely,  the  same  era  which  saw  thousands  of  converts 
to  that  Church  from  which  those  Pilgrim  Fathers  had  seceded 
martyrized,  and  the  Romanist  faith  trampled  out  with  unspar- 
ing violence  on  one  side  of  the  globe,  marked  the  foundations 
of  a  Protestant  Church  in  the  other  hemisphere,  destined  rap- 
idly to  spread  the  Gospel  over  a  whole  continent.  And  it  was 
the  descendants  of  these  same  Pilgrim  Fathers  who,  two  cen- 
turies later  in  the  cycle  of  events,  were  the  fii'st  among  West- 
ern nations  to  supply  the  link  of  connection  wanted — to  bring 
the  lapsed  heathen  race  once  more  within  the  circle  of  Chris- 
tian communion,  and  invite  them  anew  to  take  their  place  in 
the  family  of  civilized  nations. 

A  century  after  the  final  expulsion  of  foreigners  we  may  see 
bow  Japan  and  its  people,  their  customs  and  institutions,  ap* 


78  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  II 

peared  to  a  man  of  intelligence  and  observation,  by  taking  the 
Swedish  physician,  Thuuberg,  for  our  guide.  Fresh  from  a 
country  in  Europe — Sweden — where  feudal  institutions  were 
still  in  force,  he  would  seem  to  have  been  peculiarly  well  fitted 
to  enter  into  the  spirit  and  meaning  of  the  fundamental  axioms 
of  the  Japanese  Government.  Yet,  if  we  are  to  credit  Thun- 
berg  (and  as  to  the  reality  of  the  impressions  there  is  no  room 
for  doubt),  things  seemingly  similar,  so  far  from  appearing  to 
him  to  produce  like  results,  wrought  only  oppression  and  wrong 
in  Sweden  ;  and  in  Japan,  the  perfection  of  order,  law,  and  jus- 
tice! Discontent  and  attempts  at  revolution  in  the  one;  so- 
cial order,  peace,  and  prosperity  in  the  other.  Let  us  listen  to 
him,  long  after  he  had  got  over  the  first  salutations  of  the  little 
nudities  in  the  streets  of  Nagasaki,  taking  him  for  a  Dutchman, 
and  expressing  their  wonder  at  the  large  round  eyes  of  the 
European  by  crying  after  him  '  Hollande  Ome !'  which  sounds 
very  like  the  sort  of  slang  facetiousness  not  unfamiliar  to  the 
juvenile  members  of  our  own  street  populations.  Long  after 
these  first  facts  and  impressions  had  been  tempered  and  cor- 
rected by  after  knowledge,  he  tells  his  readers  that '  Japan  is 
in  many  respects  a  singular  country,  and,  with  regard  to  cus- 
toms and  institutions,  totally  different  from  Europe,  or,  I  had  al- 
most said,  from  any  other  part  of  the  world.  Of  all  the  na- 
tions that  inhabit  the  three  largest  parts  of  the  globe,  the  Jap- 
anese deserve  to  rank  the  first,  and  to  be  compared  with  the 
Europeans ;  and  although  in  many  points  they  must  yield  the 
palm  to  the  latter,  yet  in  various  other  respects  they  may  with 
great  justice  be  preferred  to  them.  Here,  indeed,  as  well  as  in 
other  countries,  are  found  both  useful  and  pernicious  establish- 
ments, both  rational  and  absurd  institutions;  yet  still  we  must 
admire  the  steadiness  which  constitutes  the  national  character, 
the  immutability  which  reigns  in  the  administration  of  their 
laws  and  in  the  exercise  of  their  public  functions,  the  unwea- 
ried assiduity  of  this  nation  to  do  and  to  promote  what  is  use- 
ful, and  a  hundred  other  things  of  a  similar  nature.'  '  That  so 
numerous  a  people  as  this  should  love  so  ardently  and  so  uni- 
versally (without  even  a  single  exception  to  the  contrary)  their 
native  country,  their  Government,  and  each  other — that  the 
whole  country  should  be,  as  it  were,  inclosed,  so  that  no  native 
can  get  out  nor  foreigner  enter  in  without  permission — that 
their  laws  should  have  remained  unaltered  for  several  thou- 
sand (hundred?)  years,  and  that  justice  should  be  administer- 
ed without  partiality  or  respect  of  persons — that  the  govern- 
ments can  neither  become  despotic  nor  evade  the  laws  in  or- 
der to  grant  pardons  or  do  other  acts  of  mercy — that  the  mon« 


Chap.  II.]  JAPAN  SEEN  BY  THUNBERG.  79 

arch  and  all  his  subjects  should  be  clad  alike  iu  a  particular 
national  dress  —  that  no  fashions  should  be  adopted  from 
abroad,  nor  now  ones  invented  at  home — that  no  foreign  war 
should  have  been  waged  for  centuries  past — that  a  great  vari- 
ety of  religious  sects  should  live  in  peace  and  harmony  togeth- 
er— that  hunger  and  want  should  be  almost  unknown,  or  at 
least  known  but  seldom — all  this  must  appear  improbable,  and 
to  many  as  impossible  as  it  is  strictly  true,  and  deserving  of 
the  utmost  attention.' 

Certainly,  of  the  whole  catalogue  of  wonderful  conditions 
presented  by  this  view  of  the  Japanese  people  and  Govern- 
ment, the  most  extraordinary  and  marvelous  to  Europeans 
must  be  the  last  two :  a  great  variety  of  religious  sects  living 
together  in  harmony,  and  hunger  and  famine  almost  unknown 
in  a  nation  of  thirty  millions  or  more,  inhabiting  a  set  of  isl- 
ands not  larger  than  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  and  in  some- 
thing like  the  same  geographical  position. 

And  nowhere  should  such  a  state  of  things  appear  more  en- 
viable than  in  England,  where  we  are  too  much  open,  perhaps, 
to  Voltaire's  reproach  of  building  '  palaces  for  our  felons  and 
prisons  for  our  poor.'  If  the  secret  by  which  such  admirable 
effects  as  Thunberg  describes  are  secured  could  only  be  com- 
municated, what  country  is  there  in  Europe  that  would  not  be 
better  for  knowing  it  ?  What  a  blessing  the  secret  of  relig- 
ious harmony  would  be  to  many  countries  from  Syria  to  Spitz- 
bergen !  All  the  other  good  things  enumerated  sink  into  a 
wholly  secondary  rank  by  the  side  of  these.  And  yet  what 
farther  blessings  are  combined  in  the  uniform  administration 
of  laws  and  justice  (exchangeable  terms,  it  seems,  in  Japan), 
undeviating  uniformity  of  costume,  absence  of  all  foreign  wars 
and  intestine  feuds,  of  foot  soldiers  and  income-tax,  with  the 
crowning  gift  of  food  to  the  poor,  who  always  get  their  bellies 
full !  These  are  miracles  which,  to  see  repeated  in  old  En- 
gland and  Ireland,  might  well  repay  an  expedition  even  to  Ja- 
pan '  beyond  the  farthermost  end  of  Asia  to  the  East.' 

But  Thunberg  has  more  to  tell  us.  '  If  the  laws  iu  this 
country  are  rigid,  the  police  are  equally  vigilant,  while  disci- 
pline and  good  order  are  scrupulously  observed.  The  happy 
consequences  of  this  are  extremely  visible  and  important,  for 
hardly  any  country  exhibits  fewer  instances  of  vice.  And  as 
no  respect  whatever  is  paid  to  persons,  and  at  the  same  time 
the  laws  preserve  their  pristine  and  original  purity,  without 
any  alterations,  explanations,  and  misconstructions,  the  sub- 
jects not  only  imbibe,  as  they  grow  up,  an  infallible  knowl- 
edge of  what  ought  or  ought  not  to  be  done,  but  are  likewise 


80  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chaf.  II. 

enlightened  by  the  example  and  irreproachable  conduct  of 
their  superiors  in  age.' 

*  Most  crimes  are  punished  with  death,  a  sentence  which  is 
inflicted  with  less  regard  to  the  magnitude  of  the  crime  than 
to  the  audacity  of  the  attempt  to  transgress  the  hallowed  laws 
of  the  empire,  and  to  violate  justice,  which,  together  with  relig- 
ion, they  consider  as  the  most  sacred  things  in  the  whole  land. 
Fines  and  2)ecuniary  mulcts  they  regard  as  equally  repugnant 
to  justice  and  reason,  as  the  rich  are  thereby  freed  from  all 
punishment,  a  procedure  which  appears  to  them  the  height  of 
absurdity.' 

*In  the  towns  it  often  happens  that  the  inhabitants  of  a 
Avhole  street  are  made  to  suffer  for  the  malpractice  of  a  single 
individual,  the  master  of  a  house  for  the  faults  of  his  domes- 
tics, and  parents  for  those  of  their  children,  in  proportion  to 
the  share  they  may  have  had  in  the  transaction.  In  Europe, 
which  boasts  a  purer  religion  and  a  more  enlightened  philoso- 
phy, Ave  very  rarely  see  those  punished  who  have  debauched  and 
seduced  others,  never  see  parents  and  relatives  made  to  suffer 
for  neglecting  the  education  of  their  children  and  kindred,  at 
the  same  time  that  these  heathens  see  the  justice  and  proprie- 
ty of  such  punishment.' 

True,  there  is  a  slight  shadow  to  this  brilliant  tableau.  The 
prisons,  we  are  told,  in  this  paradise  of  law  and  justice  are, '  as 
in  most  others,  gloomy  and  horrid ;  the  rooms  are,  however, 
kept  clean  and  wholesome,  and  consist  of  an  apartment  for  the 
trial  by  torture,  and  another  for  private  executions,  besides  a 
kitchen,  a  dining-room,  and  a  bath !' 

A  strange  juxtaposition  this,  of  rooms  for  torture  and  death, 
with  such  ample  provision  for  the  creature  comforts  in  a  kitch- 
en and  dining-room,  and  even  for  luxury  in  a  bath !  But  we 
were  warned  in  the  beginning  that  we  should  find  Japan  in 
many  respects  a  singular  country. 

Nearly  a  century  later  an  American  went  over  some  of  the 
same  ground,  and  M'ith  Republican  notions  he  supplies  us  with 
the  other  side  of  the  medal.  The  working  of  their  much-ad- 
mired institutions  does  not  appear  to  Commodore  Perry's  his- 
torian altogether  so  commendable.  Here  is  the  opinion  at 
length  of  the  practical  American  who  looked  to  final  effects 
principally. 

*The  sitter  is  the  same,  and,  what  is  more,  he  sits  on  his 
heels  to-day  just  as  his  grandfather  did  to  Thunberg,  yet  it  is 
hard  to  see  any  points  of  resemblance,  a  lesson  to  all  theolo- 
gians and  politicians  wlio  still  indulge  the  dream  that  uniform- 
ity of  opinion  on  the  plainest  matters  of  fact  and  observation 


Chap.  II.]  AMERICAN  VIEWS  OF  JAPAN.  81 

can  ever  be  attained  among  men,  however  honest  and  ccmsci- 
entious  they  may  be  in  their  efforts  after  unity.  The  Chinese 
proverb  with  more  wisdom  declares, "  Truth  is  one,  but  opin- 
ions are  many." 

'All  oflScials  serve  in  pairs,  as  spies  upon  each  other,  and 
this  pervades  the  entire  polity  of  Japan.  It  is  a  government 
of  espionage.  Every  body  is  watched.  No  man  knows  who 
are  the  secret  spies  around  him,  even  though  he  may  be  and  is 
acquainted  with  those  that  are  official.  The  emperors  them- 
selves are  not  exempt ;  governors,  giand  councilors,  vassal 
princes,  all  are  under  the  eye  of  an  everlasting  unknown  police. 
This  wretched  system  is  even  extended  to  the  humblest  of  the 
citizens.  Every  town  is  divided  into  collections  of  five  fami- 
lies, and  every  member  of  such  a  division  is  personally  respon- 
sible for  the  conduct  of  the  others ;  every  thing  which  occurs, 
therefore,  out  of  the  ordinary  coui'se  in  any  one  of  these,  is  in- 
stantly reported  by  the  other  four,  to  save  themselves  from 
censure.  The  Ziogoon  has  his  minions  about  the  Mikado,  and 
the  Grand  Council  have  theirs  about  the  Ziogoon.  And  the 
cowardice  engendered  by  such  ceaseless  distrust  ncessarily 
leads  to  cruelty  in  penalties.  When  an  official  has  offended, 
or  even  when  in  his  department  there  has  been  any  violation 
of  law,  although  beyond  his  power  of  prevention,  so  sure  is  he 
of  the  punishment  of  death,  that  he  anticipates  it  by  ripping 
up  his  own  body,  rather  than  be  delivered  over  to  the  exe- 
cutioner, and  entailing  disgrace  and  ruin  on  all  his  family. 
There  can  not,  under  such  a  system,  be  any  thing  like  judicious 
legislation  founded  on  inquiry,  and  adapted  to  the  ever-vary- 
ing circumstances  of  life.  As  Government  functionaries,  they 
lie  and  practice  artifice  to  save  themselves  from  condemnation 
by  the  higher  powers :  it  is  their  vocation.  As  private  gentle- 
men, they  are  frank,  truthful,  and  hospitable.' 

These  facts  present  a  seeming  anomaly,  and  yet  I  am  not 
sure  that  something  very  like  it,  and  differing  only  in  degree, 
may  not  be  found  nearer  home.  The  severity  of  the  Japanese 
laws  is  excessive,  the  code  is  probably  the  bloodiest  in  the 
world,  for  death  is  the  penalty  of  most  offenses.  But  the  Jap- 
anese seem  to  proceed  on  the  principle  that  he  who  violates 
one  law  will  violate  any  other,  and  that  the  willful  violator  is 
unworthy  to  live.  Does  not  the  religion  of  the  Gospel  teach 
something  very  like  it  ?  "  Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  he  who  is 
guilty  of  the  least  of  these  is  guilty  of  all." 

A  still  more  recent  American  writer  supplies  another  esti- 
mate of  what  may  be  the  value  of  these  Utopian  institutions, 
tliousrh  his  field  of  observation  seems  to  have  been  limited  to 

D2 


82  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  II. 

Nagasaki,  where  Foreign  civilization  and  Chinese  combined 
(for  a  colony  of  the  latter  exists  there)  seem  ah'eady  to  have 
mingled  in  no  purifying  streams  with  native  sources ;  and,  as 
he  modestly  observes, '  a  residence  of  five  weeks  is  an  imper- 
fect qualification  for  descanting  on  the  character  of  a  people.' 
It  is  quite  true,  however,  that  to  an  intelligent  observer  there 
are  some  features  visible  at  a  glance  from  which  inferences 
may  very  justly  be  drawn.  Among  these  he  mentions, '  Crimes 
against  property  are  not  frequent,  being  repressed  evidently  by 
a  strong  and  almost  omniscient  Government,  yet  street  broils 
are  of  common  occurrence.  The  people  seem  well  to  do  and 
contented,  yet  mendacity  and  drunkenness  are  far  from  being 
rare.  Woman  appears  to  hold  a  higher  rank  in  this  than  in 
any  Asiatic  country,  yet  prostitution  is  fostered  by  Govern- 
ment and  approved  by  moralists.' 

Of  the  higher  arcana  and  machinery  of  Government,  so  much 
lauded  by  our  optimist  Thunberg,  Dr.  Macgowan,  his  American 
confrere  of  a  later  century,  takes  another  '  stand-point  of  view,' 
and  of  necessity  a  different  impression  is  the  result. 

'  There  has  been  effected  here  what  priestcraft  and  kingcraft 
nearly  attained  with  us,  and,  by  a  singular  coincidence,  at  the 
time  when  Western  Europe  was  in  course  of  emancipation, 
Eastern  Asia  was  being  brought  into  servitude  not  less  effi- 
cient than  that  which  menaced  our  fathers.  Espionage  accom- 
plishes what  the  confessional  aims  at.  Yet  the  system  of  es- 
pionage, an  abomination  to  foreigners,  loses  much  of  its  repul- 
siveness  when  viewed  from  a  Japan  stand-point.  It  is  only 
carrying  to  an  extreme  the  justly-lauded  censorate  of  China. 
Espionage  performs  the  functions  of  a  press.  It  exercises  a 
wholesome  restraint  upon  delegated  powers,  sitting  light  upon 
intelligent  and  upright  officers,  who  regard  these  spies  with  no 
more  disfavor  than  our  treasurers  their  auditors.  How  much 
misery  would  be  averted  from  China  if  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment were  cognizant  of  official  misdemeanors  in  the  provinces. 
Nearly  all  the  maladies  of  that  empire  may  be  ascribed  to  the 
ignorance  in  which  the  Sovereign  is  kept  of  what  transpires 
beyond  the  precincts  of  the  palace.  Japan,  it  must  be  confess- 
ed, furnishes  the  best  apology  for  despotism  that  the  world  af- 
fords. The  Government  is  omniscient,  and  consequently  strong 
and  stable.  The  bondage  is  absolute  and  pressing  on  all  sides 
alike;  society  is  scarcely  conscious  of  its  existence.' 

Pretty  well  this  in  the  way  of  approval  from  a  citizen  of  the 
*free  and  enlightened  republic'  He  finds  espionage  effects 
*  what  the  confessional  only  aims  at' — it  performs  '  the  func- 
tions of  the  press' — '  it  exercises  a  wholesome  restraint  upon 


Chap.  H.]  JAPANESE  AGRICULTURE.  g3 

delegated  powers — sits  lightly  npon  intelligent  and  upright  of- 
ficers!' But,  for  sucli  results,  the  writer  seems  to  forget  it  is 
essential  that  this  secret  and  irresponsible  power  should  be 
righteously  exercised.  This  is  an  inseparable  condition  of  any 
tcholesome  restraint  or  of  espionage  sitting  lightly^  and  a  con- 
dition that  has  not  hitherto  been  realized  in  the  history  of  the 
world  in  connection  with  such  functions. 

On  the  contrary,  the  world's  experience  seems  to  have  es- 
tablished as  a  universal  truth  the  fact,  however  unsuspected  by 
the  learned  doctor,  that  personal  liberty,  security,  and  inde- 
pendence can  not  exist  side  by  side  with  a  system  of  secret  po- 
lice. Stranger  still,  he  seems  to  have  no  suspicion  that  of  the 
many  evils  Avhich  can  befall  a  nation,  perhaps  the  worst  is  a 
system  of  government  which  sows  distrust  between  man  and 
man,  deprives  the  subject  of  a  manly  sense  of  self-respect,  and 
builds  up  its  own  security  on  the  rotten  foundation  of  a  de- 
grading and  demoralizing  betrayal  of  the  secrets  of  every  fam- 
ily hearth.  If  ignorance  of  the  misdeeds  of  subordinates  or 
men  in  office  be  the  source  of  one  kind  of  evil,  a  Republican 
might  have  guessed  that  the  knowledge  which  is  derived  from 
the  venal  informer  is  in  itself  a  more  frightful  malady  than  any 
amount  of  ignorance  in  a  government,  seeing  that  spies  habit- 
ually invent  more  than  they  ever  discover. 

But  we  will  retui-n  to  our  Swedish  doctor.  When  speaking 
of  the  agi'iculture  of  the  Japanese,  he  draws  a  vivid  picture  of 
the  happy  state  of  Japan  compared  with  his  own  country : 

*  Agriculture  is  in  the  highest  esteem  with  the  Japanese,  in- 
somuch that  (the  most  barren  and  untractable  mountains  ex- 
cepted) one  sees  here  the  surface  of  the  earth  cultivated  all 
over  the  country,  and  most  of  the  mountains  and  hills  up  to 
their  very  tops.  Neither  rewards  nor  encouragements  are 
necessary  in  a  country  where  the  tillers  of  the  ground  are  con- 
sidered as  the  most  useful  class  of  citizens  (he  can  not  be  al- 
luding to  the  vexed  question  of  agricultural  prizes  in  our  day), 
and  where  they  do  not  groan  under  various  oppressions  which 
in  other  countries  have  hindered,  and  ever  must  hinder,  the 
progress  of  agriculture.  The  duties  paid  by  the  farmer  of  his 
corn  in  kind  are  indeed  very  heavy,  but  in  other  respects  he 
cultivates  his  land  with  greater  freedom  than  the  lord  of  a 
manor  in  Sweden.  He  is  not  hindered  two  days  together  at  a 
time,  in  consequence  of  furnishing  relays  of  horses,  by  which  he 
perhaps  earns  a  groat,  and  often  returns  with  the  loss  of  his 
norses ;  he  is  not  dragged  from  his  field  and  plow  to  transport 
a  prisoner  or  a  deserter  to  the  next  castle ;  nor  are  his  time 
and  property  wasted  in  making  roads,  building  bridges,  alms- 


84  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  II. 

houses,  parsonage-houses,  and  magazines.  He  knows  nothing 
of  the  impediments  and  inconveniences  which  attend  the  main- 
tenance and  equipments  of  horses  and  foot  soldiei's.  And  what 
contributes  still  more  to  his  happiness,  and  leaves  sufficient 
scope  for  his  industry  in  cultivating  his  land,  is  this,  that  he 
has  only  one  master,  viz.,  his  feudal  lord,  without  being  imder 
the  command  of  a  host  of  masters,  as  with  us.  No  parceling 
out  of  the  land  forbids  him  to  improve  to  the  least  advantage 
the  portion  he  possesses,  and  no  right  of  commonage,  belong- 
ing to  many,  prevents  each  from  deriving  profit  from  his  share. 
All  are  bound  to  cultivate  their  land ;  and  if  a  husbandman 
can  not  annually  cultivate  a  certain  portion  of  his  fields,  he  for- 
feits them,  and  another  who  can  is  at  liberty  to  cultivate  them. 
Meadows  are  not  to  be  met  with  in  the  whole  country ;  on  the 
contrary,  every  spot  of  ground  is  made  use  of  either  for  corn- 
fields or  else  for  plantations  of  esculent-rooted  vegetables,  so 
that  the  land  is  neither  wasted  upon  extensive  meadows  for 
the  support  of  cattle  and  saddle-horses,  nor  upon  large  and  un- 
profitable plantations  of  tobacco  (they  grow  tobacco,  neverthe- 
less), nor  is  it  sown  with  seed  for  any  other  still  less  necessary 
purpose,  which  is  the  reason  that  the  whole  country  is  very 
thickly  inhabited  and  populous,  and  can  without  difficulty  give 
maintenance  to  all  its  innumerable  inhabitants.' 

It  is  obvious  that  our  Swedish  observer  had  one  eye  on  his 
native  land  and  its  abuses,  and  another  on  the  country  he  thus 
so  highly  extols ;  and  that  he  was  moreover  an  out-and-out 
utilitarian,  in  the  sense  of  those  who  regard  the  meat  and 
drink  of  the  body  as  the  great  or  sole  end  for  which  the  many 
labor  on  this  earth.  He  goes  on  to  describe  the  minute  and 
elaborate  care  bestowed  on  the  manuring  of  the  soil,  to  make 
it  so  productive  of  corn  and  esculent-rooted  vegetables,  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  green  meadow  and  the  pleasant  copse ;  and 
the  process  so  carefully  described  confirms  the  impression  con- 
veyed by  what  goes  before,  that  Jajian  would  be  a  very  good 
country  to  be  fed  in,  but  those  who  live  in  it  ought  not  to  have 
noses  as  well  as  mouths,  or  be  in  any  way  endowed  with  ol- 
factory nerves. 

The  cultivator,  in  giving  himself 'the  disgusting  trouble  of 
mixing  up  manure  of  man  and  beast  till  it  becomes  a  perfect 
hodge-podge,'  must  be,  upon  the  whole,  a  cause  of  considerable 
disgust  to  every  body  else,  if  not  to  himself.  And  the  process 
described — pouring  the  contents  of  the  manure-pails  by  a  ladle 
upon  the  plant  when  it  is  about  six  inches  high,  by  which  it 
receives  the  whole  benefit  of  it,  at  the  same  time  that  the  liq- 
uor penetrates  immediately  to  the  root' — may  be  very  advan- 


Chap.  II.  J  AGRICULTURE.— POETRY.  85 

t:igeous  to  the  growth  of  .said  six-inch  high  plant,  but  hardly 
accords  with  any  delicacy  of  taste.  Some  people  might  object 
to  asparagus  or  lettuce  thus  brought  to  perfection,  and  find 
their  pleasure  of  eating  it  sadly  interfered  with  by  a  certain 
association  of  ideas,  foolish  enough  no  doubt,  but  very  difficult 
to  be  got  rid  of.  In  other  respects,  to  those  who  do  not  care 
to  eat  vegetables  at  all,  but  have  some  pleasure  in  green  fields 
and  fresh  air,  there  is  a  serious  drawback.  He  somewhere 
else  alludes  to  the  numerous  receptacles  made  for  preserving 
the  odious  compounds  until  wanted  'on  the  highways  at  fre- 
quent intervals,'  which,  he  admits,  renders  the  roads  them- 
selves impassable  to  people  afflicted  with  the  sense  of  smell, 
and  must  make  it  a  work  of  considerable  difficulty  to  get  a 
fresh  walk  from  one  end  of  the  land  to  the  other,  unless  it  be 
on  the  edge  of  the  craters.  After  I  had  resided  some  time  in 
Japan,  I  found  both  the  disagreeables  and  advantages  required 
to  be  restated,  with  certain  modifications.  Except  in  spring, 
during  the  months  of  March  and  April,  there  is  little  in  the 
manuring  to  complain  of.  How  this  is  managed  I  can  not  tell, 
for  all  exercise  in  the  country  in  China,  throughout  the  year, 
had  this  terrible  drawback  attac]»ed  to  it.  On  the  other  hand, 
either  from  the  too  great  supply  of  manure  to  the  soil,  or  oth- 
er causes — perhaps  perpetuating  the  same  seeds  and  plants 
without  change — all  their  vegetables  are  either  rank  or  taste- 
less, and  their  fruit  is  no  better.  As  it  is  never  allowed  to 
ripen,  however,  it  is  difficult  to  say  what  it  might  be  under 
more  natural  conditions  !  Still,  my  latest  conclusion  justifies 
my  early  impression  that,  as  Chloe  in  the  '  Minister's  Wooing' 
declares  in  a  higher  matter,  there  is  a  mistake  somewhere,  and 
the  result  is  that  in  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  fertile  coun- 
tries in  the  whole  world  the  flowers  have  no  scent,  the  birds 
no  song,  and  the  fruit  and  vegetables  no  flavor  !  One  of  my 
colleagues  gave  the  characteristics  of  the  country  in  another 
triology,  which  I  am  bound  to  say  was  not  inferior  in  accuracy, 
if  less  poetical.  *  Women  wearing  no  crinoline,  houses  harbor- 
ing no  bugs,  and  the  couwtry  no  lawyers.'  The  last  is  perhaps 
the  most  astonishing  of  the  whole. 

Thunberg  complains  that  the  fields  are  so  completely  clear- 
ed, that  the  most  sharp-sighted  botanist  would  scarcely  be  able 
to  discover  a  single  plant  of  any  other  species  among  the  corn ! 
Yet  he  contends  they  are  a  poetical  people.  'Poetry,'  he 
says, '  is  a  favorite  study  with  this  nation.'  The  way  in  which 
they  cultivate  their  cabbnges  would  not  have  led  one  to  this 
conclusion,  perhaps.  But  they  are  not  quite  as  bad  as  they 
are  painted,  for  weeds  flourish  at  Nagasaki  as  elsewhere,  and 
wild  flowers  too ! 


86  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  III. 

This  was  about  the  sum  of  the  information  extracted  from 
my  authorities,  ancient  or  modern,  in  respect  to  the  country 
and  its  institutions  I  was  so  soon  to  examine  for  myself.  I 
have  thought  it  might  not  be  useless,  or  prove  uninteresting  to 
general  readers  to  have,  at  a  single  glance,  a  resume  of  our 
previous  knowledge  of  the  Japanese.  More  especially  did  this 
seem  desirable,  as  from  these  same  sources  Europe  derived  the 
Utopian  views  of  Japan  long  prevalent,  and  destined  to  be 
somewhat  rudely  destroyed  upon  closer  acquaintance. 


CHAPTER  III. 

First  Impressions. — Nagasaki. 

First  impressions  of  a  country  so  little  known  can  not  al- 
ways be  correct,  yet,  if  faithfully  given,  they  may  still  be  worth 
recording.  Our  first  impressions  of  those  we  meet  in  society 
may  not  do  justice  to  all  their  latent  good  qualities ;  we  may 
very  much  exaggerate  that  which  is  unprepossessing  in  ap- 
pearance— conceive  unreasonable  dislike  to  what  is  contrary  to 
our  own  habits  and  associations,  and  for  no  better  reason  than 
such  contradiction — and,  upon  the  whole,  do  tliem  great  injus- 
tice. Nevertheless,  there  is  an  instinctive  trust  in  the  accuracy 
and  truthfulness  of  these.  Estimates  of  character,  made  upon 
farther  acquaintance,  often  prove  less  trustworthy ;  and  this,  I 
think,  may  be  very  satisfactorily  accounted  for.  Familiarity 
blunts  our  power  of  perception  as  to  what  is  really  distinctive, 
and  personal  interest,  as  well  as  partial  knowledge,  alike  tend 
to  mislead  or  pervert  the  judgment.  That  which  is  most 
characteristic  catches  the  eye  best  at  first  sight,  whether  the 
natural  features  of  a  landscape,  the  carriage  and  bearing  of  an 
individual,  or  national  life  and  customs  be  the  subject  of  ob- 
servation. 

I  was  not  deterred,  therefore,  on  arriving  at  Nagasaki,  from 
reading  as  I  ran,  and  noting  my  impressions  too,  by  the  fear 
that  I  might  fall  into  some  involuntary  error  as  to  the  right  in- 
terpretation of  all  that  I  saw.  What  we  gain  in  accuracy  by 
a  more  cautious  method,  we  are  likely  to  miss  in  freshness  and 
graphic  power,  even  if  we  do  not  lose  all  interest  in  the  sub- 
ject, when  it  has  grown  hackneyed  by  long  familiarity.  I 
give,  therefore,  from  a  few  notes  made  on  the  spot,  some  of 
my  first  impressions,  together  with  the  corrections  suggested 
by  later  information. 


Chap.  III-l 


ENTRANCE  OF  TFIE  BAY. 


87 


The  4th  of  June,  of  pleasant  memory  to  Etonians,  opened  the 
port  of  Nagasaki  to  our  rain-drenched  party.  It  has  often  been 
described  by  recent  travelers,  and  even  under  a  cloudy  sky  the 
entrance  was  not  devoid  of  beauty.  Island  after  island  comes 
into  view  as  the  bay  is  entered,  many  very  picturesque  in  form. 


NAGASAKI   HARBOR. 


As  the  ship  moves  farther  up  the  bay,  the  town  of  Nagasaki  is 
seen  lying  at  the  farther  end,  clustering  at  the  foot  of  a  range 
of  hills,  and  creeping  no  inconsiderable  distance  up  the  wooded 
sides.  Decima,  to  the  right,  fixes  the  eye — a  low,  fan-shaped 
strip  of  land,  dammed  out  from  the  waters  of  the  bay,  the  han- 
dle being  toward  the  shore,  and  truncated.  One  long  wide 
street,  with  two-storied  houses  on  each  side,  built  in  European 
style,  gives  an  air  of  great  tidiness ;  but  they  looked  with  large 
hollow  eyes  into  each  other's  interiors,  in  a  dismal  sort  of  way, 
as  if  they  had  been  so  engaged  for  six  generations  at  least,  and 
were  quite  weary  of  the  view.  A  conscious  sense  of  the  inev- 
itable monotony  of  a  life  passed  within  its  boundaries  leaves 
one  little  disposed  to  admire  even  the  trimness  and  cleanliness 
of  all  around.  But  the  view  from  the  Dutch  Commissioner's 
residence,  with  its  quaint  Japanese  garden  and  fine  sweep  dowa 


88  THREE  YEARS  m  JAPAN.  tCHAP.nt 

the  bay  toward  the  entrance,  is  very  charming.  As  I  stood  for 
a  few  minutes  alone  on  the  balcony,  there  flitted  before  mo  a 
vision  of  the  sort  of  life  these  indomitable  representatives  of 
the  Great  Batavian  Republic  must  have  led.  I  saw  the  soli- 
tary chiefs  of  the  factory,  the  Heeren  Waardenaar,  Doelf,  Tit- 
singh,  etc.,  in  long  succession,  taking  up  their  prison  station  in 
rotation,  and  looking  forth  upon  the  fiir  bay,  with  which  their 
sight  alone  might  be  gladdened.  How  often  must  the  occu- 
pants of  this  lone  post  have  strained  their  eyes  to  the  entrance, 
hoping  and  looking  in  vain  for  the  solitary  ship  bringing  tid- 
ings from  Europe  and  home  at  far-ofi"  intervals  ?  Of  a  truth 
it  must  have  been  a  trying  life  to  the  most  phlegmatic  Dutch- 
man that  ever  drew  smoke  and  consolation  from  a  meerschaum. 
And  they  held  to  this  foot  of  earth  with  desperate  tenacity, 
nothing  daunted  by  a  prison  life,  and  such  a  series  of  vexations 
and  indignities  as  only  an  Oriental  race,  like  the  Chinese  or 
Japanese,  could  have  the  ingenuit}*  to  devise,  or  the  patience  to 
put  into  execution  for  two  centuries  without  cessation  or  inter- 
mission. When  politicians  of  a  certain  school  would  advocate 
unlimited  submission  and  conciliation  in  our  dealings  with  East- 
ern nations,  and  the  Chinese  and  Japanese  especially,  one  could 
wish  they  would  take  the  trouble  to  read,  in  the  history  of 
Dutch  relations,  what  such  policy,  carried  out  unswervingly  to 
the  utmost,  led  to  in  Japan.  When  a  general  expectation  of 
efforts  to  open  Japan  to  Western  commerce  emboldened  the 
Dutch  Government,  by  slow  degrees,  gently  to  insinuate  a  pos- 
sibility of  some  relaxation  of  a  system  of  exclusion  and  isola- 
tion as  the  sole  means  of  averting  danger  and  destruction  to 
the  Japanese  themselves  and  the  whole  fabric  of  their  policy 
and  independence,  the  monopoly  won  by  the  exclusion  of  all 
other  nations  two  centuries  before  had  long  ceased  to  be  of 
any  value  to  Holland,  even  had  the  conditions  of  such  dwarfed 
and  oppressed  trade  been  less  humiliating.  To  this  end  all 
trade  with  these  countries  naturally  gravitates,  if  the  Rulers  are 
allowed  to  follow  their  own  inspirations  and  policy  without 
check  or  hinderance.  This  is  the  legitimate  policy  of  a  peace- 
at-any-price  policy,  as  all  who  advocate  such  a  system  in  the 
East  may  satisfy  themselves,  if  they  will  take  the  trouble  to 
study  either  the  past  or  the  present.  It  has  been  common 
enough  to  twit  the  Dutch  with  a  groveling  cupidity  in  sub- 
mitting to  such  conditions  as  were,  for  so  many  generations, 
relentlessly  imposed  upon  them  by  the  Japanese.  But  we,  and 
all  the  nations  of  the  West,  who  have  any  commercial  interests 
in  the  East,  are  greatly  indebted  to  them  for  the  demonstration 
their  experience  has  afforded  us  of  the  futility  of  such  unresist- 


Chap.  III.]  ASPECT  OF  THE  BAY.  89 

ing  submission  to  wrong  and  injury,  caprice  and  oppression, 
from  an  Eastern  Government. 

And,  to  say  the  truth,  we  have  nothing  to  boast  of  in  this 
field,  and  are  little  entitled  to  make  merry  at  the  expense  of 
our  neighbors.  What  the  Dutch  submitted  to  for  centuries  in 
Japan,  we  also,  and  other  nations  with  us,  but  we  more  than 
all  the  rest,  on  account  of  our  larger  stake,  put  up  with  from 
the  Chinese  at  Canton.  Sometimes,  it  is  true,  we  Avere  driven 
beyond  our  powers  of  endurance,  and  before  the  first  conflict 
ending  in  war — which  it  is  the  peculiar  delight  of  our  cousins 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  to  call  the '  opium  war' — we 
had  upon  more  than  one  occasion  shown  something  of  the  old 
spirit  of  resistance  to  oppression,  but  never,  I  fancy,  without 
the  rebuke  of  the  high  powers  at  the  India  House,  who  looked 
to  the  season's  tea,  and  held  any  thing  that  periled  it  an  unpar- 
donable offense  in  their  servants.  Nor  were  the  Governments 
of  the  day  one  whit  more  disposed  to  run  any  unavoidable 
risks  by  the  assei'tion  of  our  national  dignity.  It  is  a  late  dis- 
covery that,  between  a  determined  assertion  of  treaty  rights, 
with  all  its"sad  contingencies  of  resistance,  collision,  and  event- 
ual Avar,  and  the  most  abject  submission  to  continually  increas- 
ing wrong  and  injury,  there  is  rarely  any  middle  term  to  be 
found  in  the  East  compatible  either  with  the  maintenance  of 
those  rights  or  the  extension  of  commerce. 

The  first  aspect  of  the  bay  itself  strongly  recalls  to  the  Euro- 
pean traveler  some  of  the  more  picturesque  fiords  of  Norway, 
especially  the  approach  to  Christiania,  the  capital.  The  hills 
rise  boldly  from  the  water's  edge,  and  the  pine  grows  plenti- 
fully here  as  there.  But  the  Swiss  lakes  also  produce  scenes 
much  more  resembling  this  than  one  could  have  anticipated. 
On  landing  only,  something  more  tropical  appears  in  the  trees 
and  shrubs.  The  pomegranate  and  persimmon,  the  palm  and 
the  bamboo  are  there.  But  the  gardinia  and  camellia  flourish 
also ;  and  every  where  our  common  ferns  may  be  seen,  and  ivy 
covering  the  walls ;  while  by  the  road-side  the  thistle  is  not 
wanting,  to  confound  all  geographical  divisions  into  floral  zones. 
The  rare  and  much-prized  stiphelia  of  botanists  I  observed 
growing  luxuriantly  in  many  places  as  a  creeper. 

A  beautiful  bay  it  is,  and  perfectly  land-locked.  While  blow- 
ing a  gale  of  wind  outside,  there  is  scarcely  any  swell  here,  or 
only  enough  to  make  the  water  look  crisp  and  fresh,  while  the 
brown  fishing-hawk  swoops  down  upon  his  finny  prey,  or,  poised 
above,  fills  the  air  with  his  wild  cry.  They  seem  to  occupy  the 
place  of  sea-gulls  in  this  latitude,  and  are  perched  about  on  the 
rigging  of  the  several  ships,  especially  those  with  which  they 


90  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  IIL 

have  had  the  longest  acquaintance,  for  they  make  a  distinction, 
and  are  very  shy  of  a  new  arrival. 

The  first  landing  in  a  new  country  is  generally  a  moment  of 
great  hiterest,  even  to  the  oldest  traveler.  There  must  be  some- 
thing essentially  pleasant  in  new  sensations,  novelty  in  almost 
every  form,  since  not  only  we  give  ourselves  much  trouble  to 
obtain  it,  but  generally  find  some  pleasure  when  it  is  secured. 
No  traveling  in  Europe  can  rob  Japan  of  its  peculiar  claims  to 
admiration  under  this  head,  for  nothing  in  the  West  at  all  re- 
sembles a  thousand  things  that  meet  the  eye ;  and  even  famil- 
iarity with  the  scenery  and  people  of  other  parts  of  the  East 
still  leaves  room  for  a  variety  of  new  impressions.  It  must 
often  have  been  remarked  how  little  books,  or  drawings  either, 
can  etfect  to  enable  any  one  completely  to  realize  a  new  coun- 
try and  people.  Once  among  them,  you  discover  immediately 
that  your  ideal  is  something  very  diflerent  from  the  actual  liv- 
ing embodiment.  This  is  essentially  true  of  people,  towns, 
streets,  and  the  efiect  of  costumes  diftering  from  those  to  which 
the  eye  is  accustomed.  Certainly,  as  regards  the  first  view  of 
Japan,  there  are  specialities  in  the  Japanese  figure,  physiog- 
nomy, and  costume,  for  which  long  familiarity  with  the  adjoin- 
ing population  of  China  does  nothing  to  prepare  you.  It  is 
not  so  much  that  the  race  of  boatmen,  and  the  working-classes 
generally,  are  content  with  the  narrowest  possible  girdle  and 
connecting  band,  for  that  is  common  enough  from  Alexandria 
to  China ;  though  in  respect  to  the  men  of  the  latter  country, 
I  must  say  there  is  generally  a  more  liberal  allowance  of  col- 
ored calico  for  a  covering,  under  the  hottest  sun  and  hardest 
work,  than  seemed  to  be  the  usage  at  Nagasaki.  But  it  is  as 
regards  the  women  that  all  our  notions  are  most  confounded. 
One  must  be  brought  up  from  infancy  to  the  manner  to  be  able 
to  look  upon  their  large  mouths  full  of  black  teeth,  and  the  lips 
thickly  daubed  with  a  brick-red  color,  and  not  turn  away  with 
a  strong  feeling  of  repulsion. 

The  general  aspect  of  Nagasaki,  in  the  upper  part  of  the 
town,  -was  that  of  a  half-deserted  city,  partly  from  the  width 
of  the  streets,  and  partly  by  contrast,  I  suspect,  with  the  swarm- 
ing populations  of  Chinese  cities.  The  shops  seemed  but  poor- 
ly supplied ;  porcelain,  and  lacker-ware,  and  silk  goods  there 
were — not  absolutely  to  be  despised,  perhaps,  if  Yeddo  had  not 
been  in  prospect,  but  presenting  no  great  attractions. 

One  or  two  of  the  more  salient  features  of  Nagasaki  street 
life  must  strike  the  least  observant.  I  say  'street  life  ;'  but  as 
all  the  shops  have  open  fronts,  and  give  a  view  right  through 
the  interior  to  the  inevitable  little  garden  at  the  back,  and  the 


Chap.  III.l  HOUSES,  THEIR  USE.— CLIMATE.  91 

inmates  of  the  house  sit,  work,  and  play  in  full  view,  whatever 
may  be  the  occupation  in  hand — the  morning  meal,  the  after- 
noon siesta,  or  the  later  ablutions,  the  household  work  of  the 
women,  the  play  of  their  nude  progeny,  or  the  trade  and  handi- 
craft of  the  men — each  house  is  coji verted  into  a  microcosm 
where  the  Japanese  may  be  studied  in  all  their  aspects.  We 
hear  a  great  deal  of  the  marvelous  perfection  to  which  a  gov- 
ernment system  of  rule  by  espionage  has  been  brought  in  this 
country ;  but  really  it  would  seem  as  if  the  last,  and  not  the 
least  strange  result  arrived  at  has  been  the  abrogation  of  all 
secrecy  or  desire  for  privacy  on  the  part  of  a  whole  popula- 
tion !  It  says  much,  too,  for  the  climate,  which  has  often  more 
to  do  with  the  habits  and  tastes  of  a  people  than  more  recon- 
dite causes.  It  has  been  asserted  by  Buckle,  and  others  before 
him,  that  the  character  of  a  people's  civilization  is  actually  de- 
termined by  the  climate,  and  there  is  much  in  Japan  to  bear 
out  the  truth  of  the  axiom. 

Throughout  the  south  of  Europe  and  in  the  East,  in  our 
time  as  in  the  days  of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome,  houses  are 
merely  places  to  sleep  and  to  eat  in,  to  lock  up  their  goods 
when  trade  is  the  vocation,  and  sometimes  their  women.  In 
northern  lands,  blessed  only  with  a  small  share  of  sun  and  fine 
weather,  and  a  disproportionate  allowance  of  fog  and  mist,  of 
cold  and  damp,  many  of  the  chief  pleasures  of  life  must  be 
sought  within  the  walls  of  a  well-built  and  roomy  house,  capa- 
ble of  being  thoroughly  warmed,  and  made  cheerful  by  fire  and 
artificial  light.  Hence  the  domesticity  of  Northern  Europe, 
with  its  chief  home  in  Great  Britain  ;  hence  many  of  our  vir- 
tues, and  some  of  our  vices !  Among  the  former,  the  art  of 
making  ourselves  comfortable,  so  often  quoted  by  the  French, 
and  so  rarely  attained,  may  fairly  take  rank.  Hence,  too,  in 
part  at  least,  the  luxury  and  extravagance  displayed  in  many 
of  our  dwellings  and  habits  of  life. 

It  is  impossible  to  wander  through  any  of  these  Eastern  lands 
without  being  farther  struck  by  the  influence  of  climate  in  na- 
tional dress  or  clothing,  and  the  requirements  of  modesty  or 
decency.  Certainly,  if  the  laws  of  morality  are  immutable,  and 
written  in  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  all  men  alike,  as  is  com- 
monly maintained,  it  is  difficult  to  arrive  at  the  same  conclu- 
sion as  regards  any  universality  or  identity  of  the  innate  sense 
which  dictates  the  rules  of  propriety  in  dress.  We  read  that 
in  the  fifteenth  century,  when  the  sect  of  Flagellants  perambu- 
lated Europe,  plying  the  whip  upon  their  naked  backs,  and  de- 
claring that  the  whole  of  religion  consisted  in  the  use  of  the 
scourge, '  others,  more  crazy  still,  pronounced  the  use  of  clothes 


92  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  III. 

to  be  evidence  of  an  unconvevted  nature,  and  returned  to  the 
nakedness  of  our  first  parents  as  proof  of  their  restoration  to  a 
state  of  innocence.'  Now,  whether  the  working  part  of  this 
population  are  in  the  state  of  primeval  purity  and  innocence 
or  the  very  reverse,  one  thing  is  certain,  that  they  are  in  a  state 
very  nearly  approaching  that  of  our  first  parents,  and  may 
daily  be  seen  '  naked  and  not  ashamed.'  But  if  it  should  turn 
out,  as  has  been  asserted  by  those  who  have  lived  longest 
among  them,  that  their  women  are  not  less  chaste,  nor  their 
men  more  immoral  than  many  of  the  best-dressed  populations 
of  Europe,  it  will  be  hard  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  in  this 
said  article  of  clothing  there  is  a  great  deal  more  that  is  pure- 
ly conventional  than  is  generally  imagined. 

When  I  first  landed  it  was  a  holiday-time ;  many  of  the  peo- 
ple were  out,  evidently  dressed  in  their  best,  and  exchanging 
grave  and  courteous  salutations  as  they  met,  bending,  with 
their  hands  sliding  down  to  their  knees,  and  uttering  their 


VPANESE    SALUTATION. 


greetings  with  a  deep-drawn  inspiration,  the  depth  from  whence 
it  was  extracted  appearing  to  be  in  strict  relation  to  the  de- 
gree of  respect  they  wished  to  manifest,  as  though  the  joy  and 
satisfaction  of  such  a  meeting  were  something  too  deep  for  ut- 
terance !  Banners  and  flags  of  fantastic  device,  and  often  grace- 
ful forms,  were  being  carried  about  in  procession,  while  others 
were  hung  on  poles  before  many  of  the  doors,  with  little  man- 
nikins,  dressed  in  gaudy  colors,  swinging  to  and  fro  beneath. 
It  was  a  great  fete  or  '-  Matsuri^  held  once  a  year  for  three 
days,  to  commemorate  the  births  of  sons  and  daughters ;  and 


Chap.  III.] 


JAPANESE  CUSTOMS. 


93 


the  little  stufFed  figures  represent  the  accessions  to  the  family 
during  the  year — two  for  a  son  and  one  for  a  daughter.  Street 
musicians  were  about ;  not  the  respectable  hurdy-gurdy  of  Eu- 
ropean cities,  but  a  sort  of  lute  and  fife,  played  by  an  itinerant 
race.    Some  are  said  to  be  outcasts  and  ''LoninSy  who  some- 


LOOTN  BEADING. 


times  thus  play  the  mendicant  instead  of  the  highway  robber, 
with  a  hat  completely  concealing  their  face.  Inside  a  half- 
closed  shop  might  be  seen  a  dozen  musicians,  squatted  on  their 
knees  and  heels  (a  heart-breaking  and  impossible  posture  to  the 
uninitiated).  I  say  musicians,  but  they  make  a  most  unearthly 
noise,  a  perfect  charivari  of  drum,  and  fife,  and  stringed  instru- 
ments, each  performer  apparently  seeking  with  the  greatest 
conscientiousness  to  drown  the  noise  of  his  neighbor,  and  suc- 
ceeding to  perfection. 
I  have  made  some  remarks  on  the  nude  Japanese  :  it  is  only 


94  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  III. 

right  to  observe  that  all  the  more  well-to-do  classes  go  about 
full  dressed,  and  with  great  attention  both  to  taste  and  neat- 
ness of  costume.  I  speak  of  the  better  class  ofmeyi  only,  for 
women  of  this  rank  do  not  present  themselves  out  of  doors,  it 
would  seem.  Take  them  all  in  all,  with  their  resemblances 
and  differences,  you  soon  come  to  the  conclusion  that,  judging 
even  from  this  sea-port  or  Wapping  of  Japan,  with  a  Chinese 
colony  located  among  them  for  some  centuries  to  teach  them 
their  vices,  Dutch  and  other  foreigners  in  time  past  and  pres- 
ent to  add  their  quota  also,  they  are  a  good-humored,  intelli- 
gent, and  courteous  race,  gentle  withal,  and  speaking  one  of 
the  softest  tongues  out  of  Italy.  Their  salutations  and  greet- 
ings in  the  market-place  have  a  stately  and  elaborate  courtesy 
in  the  lowly  bend  of  the  body,  and  make  a  very  striking  con- 
trast to  the  jerk  of  the  head  and  '  How  do  ?'  of  Jones,  Brown, 
and  Robinson. 

A  fair  amount  of  industry  and  business  appeared  in  the  shops 
and  along  the  wide  streets,  down  the  centre  of  which  there  is, 
in  most  cases,  a  fine  flag  pavement.  Groups  of  half,  or  wholly 
naked  children,  clamoring  for  buttons,  you  meet  every  where ; 
and  almost  every  woman  has  at  least  one  at  the  breast,  and 
often  another  at  the  back.  The  race  is  undoubtedly  prolific, 
and  this,  I  should  say,  is  a  very  paradise  of  babies. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  fiicts  connected  with  the  port, 
and  the  relations  opened  by  the  series  of  treaties,  fi-om  Com- 
modore Perry's,  in  March,  1854,  to  Lord  Elgin's,  in  August, 
1858,  is  the  Japanese  steam  factory  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
bay,  under  the  superintendence  of  Dutch  officers.  I  went  over 
it,  and  could  not  but  admire  the  progress  made,  under  every 
possible  difficulty,  by  the  Japanese  and  Dutch  combined,  in 
their  endeavors  to  create,  in  this  remote  corner  of  the  earth, 
all  the  complicated  means  and  appliances  for  the  repair,  and 
manufacture  ultimately,  of  steam  machinery. 

All  honor  is  due  to  the  Dutch  officers — Captain  Kattandyck, 
of  the  Dutch  Navy,*  as  the  head  of  the  commission,  and  the 
Chief  Engineer — worthy  descendants  of  those  brave  Holland- 
ers whom  no  danger  could  daunt,  nor  difficulties  arrest,  in  their 
efforts  to  conquer  a  territory  from  the  sea  on  the  one  side,  and 
the  Spaniard  on  the  other. 

In  going  over  the  various  workshops,  where  every  thing  had 
to  be  created  from  the  beginning — bricks  and  tiles  to  be  made, 
and  kilns  even  to  burn  them,  for  the  necessary  buildings,  docks 
to  plan  and  dig,  Japanese  workmen  to  instruct,  with  all  the 
endless  diffionlties  caused  by  imperfect  means  of  communica- 
*  The  present  Minister  of  Marine  at  the  Hague. 


Chap.  III.J  STEAM-ENGINE  FACTORY.  95 

tion,  and  not  be  struck  with  the  singular  combination  of  en- 
ergy and  persevering  effort,  guided  by  competent  practical 
knowledge,  which  the  Dutch  must  have  supplied. 

The  head  engineer,  whose  name  I  am  sorry  I  can  not  recall, 
was  one  of  those  plain,  unpretending  men,  who,  like  the  Brunels 
and  Stcphensons  of  our  own  country,  find  means  of  overcoming 
every  difficulty.  Not  the  least,  perhaps,  in  this  case,  was  the 
reluctance  of  the  Japanese  to  sink  large  sums,  month  after 
month,  in  an  undertaking  the  full  value  of  which  they  could 
hardly  appreciate  until  they  saw  some  tangible  results.  Of 
course  there  was  much  which  yet  remained  to  be  done;  but 
even  then,  in  little  more  than  a  year,  a  large  lathe  factory  was 
in  full  work,  where  Japanese  workmen,  some  the  sons  of  gen- 
tlemen, turned  out  all  the  parts  of  a  steam-engine  proper  to 
their  department.  Among  other  things,  I  found  them  turning 
moderator  lamps !  Beyond  was  a  forge  factory,  in  complete 
working  order,  with  a  Nasmyth's  hammer,  and  all  the  requi- 
sites for  repairing  damages.  And  here  we  saw  one  of  the  most 
extraordinary  and  crowning  testimonies  of  Japanese  enterprise 
and  ingenuity,  which  leaves  all  the  Chinese  have  ever  attempted 
far  behind.  I  allude  to  a  steam-engine  with  tubular  boilers, 
made  by  themselves  before  a  steam-vessel  or  engine  had  ever 
been  seen  by  Japanese;  made  solely,  therefore, from  tlie  plans 
in  a  Dutch  work.  This  engine  was  not  only  put  together,  but 
made  to  work  a  boat.  It  is  true  there  were  defects,  both  in 
structure  and  adaptation ;  and  it  is  rather  a  marvel,  perhaps, 
that  the  engineers  were  not '  hoisted  with  their  own  petard ;' 
but  even  these  defects  admit  of  rectification,  under  the  able 
hands  of  the  head  engineer,  were  it  not  worthy  of  being  pre- 
served as  a  national  monument  of  Japanese  capacity  and  enter- 
prise. An  American  writer  seems  unwilling  to  leave  them  the 
credit  so  justly  their  due,  and  suggests  that  the  workmen  must 
have  seen  the  United  States  '  Mississippi'  steamer !  But  he  is 
clearly  mistaken.  It  was  actually  in  operation  long  before  an 
American  or  any  other  steamer  had  ever  appeared  in  Japanese 
waters. 

I  left  this  most  interesting  establishment,  and  its  worthy 
head,  who  spoke  English  very  unexceptionably,  and  gave  every 
kind  of  information  with  great  readiness,  fully  realizing  the  la- 
bor and  the  difficulties  he  and  his  fellow-workmen  must  have 
had  to  encounter  at  every  step,  in  thus  laying  the  foundations 
of  a  steam  navy  in  these  remote  regions,  and  among  a  people 
to  whom  all  the  appliances  of  modern  science  were  unknown. 
We  extended  our  walk  to  the  Russian  settlement,  in  a  beauti- 
fully situated  cove,  with  wooded  hills  rising  boldly  behind  it* 


96  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  III. 

Coal-sheds  and  stores  spread  along  the  base,  while  temporary 
barracks  and  head-quarters  were  on  a  commanding  platform 
half  way  up  the  banks.  If  the  Russians,  as  some  have  sur- 
mised, intended  a  permanent  settlement,  it  could  not  have  been 
better  chosen ;  but  I  saw  nothing  to  indicate  more  than  what 
it  professed  to  be — a  temporary  location  for  the  crew  of  the 
frigate '  Aschol,'  requiring  a  thorough  repair  and  refit,  for  which 
this  retired  and  snug  bay  was  admirably  adapted.  Tliey  had 
been  here  some  months,  and  this  had  evidently  been  made  the 
rendezvous  for  a  Commodore's  squadron,  consisting  of  the  frig- 
ate and  half  a  dozen  corvettes  and  gunboats,  supposed  to  be 
on  their  way  to  the  Amoor.  I  dare  say,  being  here  in  force, 
the  Russian  had  had  it  pretty  much  his  own  way,  and  obtained 
what  supplies  he  wanted,  with  fair  words  or  the  strong  hand, 
as  the  case  might  require.  But,  under  similar  circumstances, 
the  same  thing  would  probably  have  been  done  by  the  senior 
officer  of  any  other  foreign  squadron. 

Talking  of  supplies,  there  seemed  a  terrible  dearth  of  chick- 
ens, though  plenty  of  eggs.  There  were  no  sheep  to  be  bought, 
for  there  are  none  in  the  country ;  and  bullocks  were  denied, 
and  declared  not  to  exist  in  the  island,  until  a  razzia  of  the  Rus- 
sians swept  in  two  or  three  score  from  the  suiTounding  coun- 
try, after  which  they  were  always  abundantly  supplied.  The 
only  specimens  we  could  procure,  however,  made  wretcljed  beef, 
and  were  only  fit  for  leather,  though  cheap  enough,  if  any  thing 
can  properly  be  called  cheap  which  is  bad  and  unfit  for  use.  No 
cattle  being  kept  for  slaughter  by  a  nation  of  Buddhists  and 
Ichthyologists  or  Vegetai'ians,  only  those  can  be  obtained  which 
are  taken  from  the  plow,  and  of  course  old  and  worn-out  beasts 
are  alone  brought  to  market.  The  scarcity  of  fowls  is  less 
easily  understood,  seeing  that  for  more  than  six  months  there 
must  have  been  a  remunerating  demand,  and  the  means  of 
producing  them  are  there.  Bantams,  beautiful  enough  to  win 
prizes,  are  plentiful  in  the  streets,  and  a  few  long-legged,  high- 
stepping  fowls,  fit  almost  for  a  cabriolet,  might  also  be  seen  ; 
but  they  had  a  patriarchal  look,  and,  moreover,  could  not  be 
bought.  In  fact,  it  seemed  that  the  first  settlers  would  find  no 
small  difficulty  in  supplying  their  table  with  any  thing  but  fish 
and  vegetables,  unless,  in  winter,  game  might  fill  up  the  deficien- 
cies. Fish  alone  is  plentiful  at  Nagasaki,  and  in  considerable 
variety.  We  found  crawfish  and  prawns  of  noble  proportions. 
Some  of  the  fish  are  good,  and  others  smooth-skinned  and 
coarse ;  but  they  are  in  great  variety,  from  the  pomfret  to  the 
shark,  which  latter  is  not  despised  by  the  natives.  Its  fins,  in- 
deed, are  a  delicacy  among  the  Chinese ;  and  its  skin  furnishes 
A  covering  to  the  Japanese  sword  scabbards. 


CHAP.m.]         CLIMATE.— MODE  OF  RECEPTION.  97 

After  a  glance  at  the  fisli-market  and  vegetable  stalls,  the 
latter  chiefly  filled  with  the  coarser  kinds  of  roots  and  French 
beans,  I  wandered  over  one  of  the  beautiful  sloping  hills  ex- 
tending along  the  bay  toward  the  mouth  of  the  harbor.  It 
offered  more  than  one  delightful  site  for  a  foreign  settlement, 
with  abundant  Avater  frontage,  and  bounded  by  a  ravine,  down 
which  a  mountain  stream  came  tumbling  in  foam  and  ripple, 
to  empty  itself  into  the  bay.  With  such  a  site,  invalids  from 
India  and  China  might  find  a  Sanitarium  such  as  no  other  land 
between  the  two,  or  east  of  the  Cape,  can  afford.  The  end  of 
June  was  approaching,  and  still  no  summer-heat  was  experi- 
enced, the  thermometer  ranging  only  from  62°  to  78°. 

The  rain  at  this  season,  indeed,  obscures  the  sun  and  tem- 
pers the  atmosphere ;  but  whoever  has  panted  through  six 
months  of  summer-heat  on  the  banks  of  the  Hooghly  or  the 
burning  plains  of  Madras,  or  sighed  in  vain  for  one  breath  of 
air  in  the  sun-stricken  side  of  Hongkong,  and  the  low,  sedgy 
flats  of  the  Canton  river,  will  gladly  compound  for  a  tempera- 
ture of  70°  in  June,  and  a  fresh  breeze  from  the  south,  by  six 
weeks  of  heavy  rain.  In  the  South  there  is  little  actual  win- 
ter, it  appears.  A  new  country  full  of  natural  beauties,  no 
tropical  heat,  and  within  ten  days'  steam  of  Hongkong,  prom- 
ised an  abundant  influx  of  visitors,  seeking  for  change  and 
health — a  promise  which  was  more  fully  realized  in  the  sequel 
than  many  other  anticipated  results. 

Before  taking  my  departure  for  Yeddo,  I  had  occasion  to 
see  the  Governor  of  Nagasaki,  whom  I  found  full  of  courtesy, 
and  a  man  of  prepossessing  address  and  manners.  Their  modes 
of  reception,  though  very  simple,  are  not  Avanting  in  dignity. 
If  the  person  to  be  received  is  of  sufficient  rank  to  entitle  him 
to  be  greeted  as  an  equal,  the  Governor  will  meet  the  guest  at 
the  end  of  the  first  corridor  leading  to  the  reception-room,  and 
after  an  exchange  of  salutations,  show  him  the  way.  When 
foreigners  are  to  be  received,  seats  and  tables  are  arranged  on 
each  side  of  the  room  opposite.  The  Japanese  take  theirs  ac- 
cording to  their  respective  rank  on  one  side,  and  the  foreign- 
ers are  requested  to  sit  down  opposite,  benches  or  chairs  being 
provided  for  the  occasion.  As  the  interview  proceeds,  lacker 
trays  are  brought,  on  which  are  fire,  tobacco,  pi]ies,  and  small 
copper  spittoons ;  and  if  it  be  a  very  formal  or  long  affair, 
these  are  succeeded  by  a  succession  of  trays  containing  first 
cake  and  sweets,  then  fish,  vegetables,  sea-weed,  rice,  etc.,  and 
tea — the  last  of  doubtful  flavor.  Cups  of  saki,  a  spirit  distilled 
from  rice,  are  handed  roimd,  and  some  peo]>le  think  it  very 
palatable  or  potable.    It  is  quite  as  good  (or  bad)  as  the  Chi- 


08  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  IV. 

nese  samshu  or  wine,  however,  and  very  much  the  same  kind 
of  thing. 

Grapes  they  have,  but  from  these  they  make  spirit,  not  wine. 
When  the  visit  is  conduded  the  two  parties  rise,  notice  having 
been  given  by  the  guest  of  his  wish  to  retire.  Salutations  are 
returned,  and  he  is  conducted  by  his  host  a  longer  or  shorter 
distance,  according  to  their  relative  rank.  All  this  is  well  and 
courteously  done,  but  the  tedium,  and  often  the  uselessness  of 
these  official  interviews  of  several  hours,  when  important  busi- 
ness presses  for  decision,  is  something  beyond  description. 
For  every  thing  a  double  translation  is  required,  first  into 
Dutch,  from  whatever  foreign  language  is  spoken,  then  into 
Japanese,  and  so  back  again,  with  the  pleasant  condition  of  ut- 
ter uncertainty  whether  any  of  the  true  sense  or  spirit  of  the 
first  words  spoken  passes  through  the  Japanese  and  last  filter, 
or  is  left  in  the  unspoken  residuum.  Time  alone  can  supply  a 
remedy  for  this,  by  enabling  foreigners  to  be  their  own  inter- 
preters, and  speak  Japanese.  The  native  interpreters  all  un- 
derstand and  speak  more  or  less  of  English,  but  too  little  yet 
to  be  available  for  any  practical  purpose.  It  is  encouraging, 
however,  to  see  the  spontaneous  effort  that  has  been  made  in 
this  direction  ;  and  many  years  can  not  elapse  before  Dutch  is 
entirely  superseded,  and  English  takes  its  place.*    % 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Nagasaki  to  Yeddo.  —  The  Work  of  Two  Centuries  tmdone  in  as  many 
Years. — Effect  upon  the  Japanese  Mind. — How  its  Rulers  felt  under  such 
Innovations. — The  Touch-stone  of  Trial. — First  Arrival  of  the  British  and 
American  Diplomatic  Agents  at  Yeddo  to  take  up  a  permanent  Resi- 
dence. 

Nagasaki  to  Yeddo !  Two  centuries  lie  between  these 
points,  so  near  on  the  map,  but  so  far  and  completely  separ- 
ated by  the  determined  policy  of  the  Japanese  rulers — a  policy 
of  isolation,  so  effectually  carried  out  that  no  foreigner,  though 
he  might  under  the  Dutch  flag  gain  access  to  Nagasaki,  could 
force  or  find  his  way  to  the  capital. 

*  Great  progress  has  in  effect  been  made  during  the  past  three  years 
every  where  except  at  Yeddo  !  At  the  three  ports,  many  very  efficient  inter- 
preters in  English  are  constantly  employed  by  the  Japanese  authorities.  At 
Yeddo,  I  offered  to  have  a  class  of  youths  taught  English,  if  the  Government 
would  select  educated  boys,  and  send  them  to  us.  They  appeared  to  receive 
the  proposition  with  great  pleasure,  and  promised  immediately  after  my  ar- 
rival to  make  a  selection,  but  it  was  yet  to  be  done  when  I  left,  at  the  end  of 
nearly  three  years. 


Chap.  IV.]  CHANGED  RELATIONS.  99 

A  mission  of  tribute-bearers  alone  was  permitted  to  proceed 
to  Yeddo,  under  the  most  vigilant  and  inexorable  of  escorts — 
paid  by  tliemselves,  too,  thus  adding  insult  to  injury.  When 
there  they  were  closely  guarded,  and  allowed  to  offer  on  their 
knees  or  faces,  in  the  august  presence  of  the  Siogun  (Tycoon) 
— or,  rather,  with  prostrations  before  a  screen,  behind  which 
he  was  supposed  to  be  seated  in  solemn  state — the  offerings 
of  the  Dutch  factory,  in  humble  token  of  gratitude  for  the 
pleasant  life  and  profitable  conditions  of  trade  enjoyed  at  De- 
cima !  If  these  presents,  in  value  and  number,  were  satisfac- 
tory, then  the  suite  were  farther  graciously  permitted  to  play 
all  sorts  of  antics  and  tomfooleries  for  the  especial  amusement 
of  the  court  and  the  ladies  behind  the  lattices.  Tlmnberg  re- 
lates how  they  were  desired  to  turn  round,  that  they  might 
show  the  cut  of  their  clothes  behind  and  before ;  dance  Euro- 
pean dances,  sing  foreign  songs,  feign  drunkenness,  etc.,  for 
several  hours,  until  completely  exhausted,  when  they  were  al- 
lowed to  retire,  but  not  to  rest ;  for,  the  Tycoon's  entertain- 
ment over,  princes  and  courtiers  pressed  upon  them  for  farther 
amusement.  It  does  not  appear  that  the  chief  of  the  factory 
was  subjected  to  this  truly  humiliating  oideal,  but  all  the  rest 
of  his  mission  were  made  to  contribute  their  share. 

Such  were  the  receptions  granted  during  the  last  two  cen- 
turies ;  but '  Nagasaki  to  Yeddo'  carries  the  imagination  back 
yet  another  century,  when  the  stout  English  pilot,  William 
Adams,  first  steered  to  the  coast  a  storm-tossed  and  battered 
vessel  of  small  tonnage,  under  Dutch  colors,  the  only  one  of  a 
fleet  of  five  that  ever  reached  a  Japanese  jjort.  After  a  series 
of  disasters,  he  arrived,  with  only  five  companions  who  could 
walk,  and  was  sent  with  his  party  to  the  capital.  How  he 
made  his  way  at  Court,  though  no  courtier  born,  and  survived 
the  kindly  suggestion  of  a  Portuguese  Jesuit,  that  he  should 
be  hanged  as  a  'pestilent  fellow  and  a  pirate,'  is  generally 
known.  Three  centuries  have  rolled  on  since  then,  and  now 
Foreign  Representatives  are  on  their  way  to  exchange  the  rati- 
fications of  new  treaties ;  and  they  will  arrive  at  the  capital, 
not,  as  honest  Will  Adams  approached  the  coast,  in  a  little  mer- 
chant lugger,  unaccredited  and  helpless,  but  in  due  state,  each 
with  a  goodly  ship-of-war  for  escort,  bearing  the  national  flag ; 
not,  as  the  Representatives  of  any  foreign  nation  during  the 
two  centuries  past,  bearers  of  presents  and  triennial  tribute — 
the  price  paid  for  leave  to  trade  at  Nagasaki,  and  there  alone, 
under  the  most  oppressive  and  humiliating  conditions — but 
empty-handed,  save  as  the  bearers  of  treaties  which  abrogate 
all  conditions  not  consistent  with  the  dignity  of  a  great  nation, 


100  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  IV. 

and  the  free  development  of  a  mutually  advantageous  trade. 
So  great  is  the  contrast,  that  two  centuries  seem  hardly  too 
much  for  the  change  to  be  effected  in.  And  yet  it  had  all  been 
the  work  of  five  years — of  five  years  of  continuous  treaties,  it 
may  be  said,  but  all  crowded  into  that  sliort  space.  The  ex- 
pedition of  the  United  States,  under  Commodore  Perry,  in 
March,  1854,  first  began  by  inserting  the  wedge,  destined  by 
successive  efforts  of  Foreign  Powers  to  cleave  through  the  op- 
posing body  of  Japanese  tradition  and  policy.  Admiral  Stir- 
ling followed  later  in  the  year,  and  content,  like  his  predeces- 
sor, with  continued  refusal  to  trade,  he  merely  stipulated  for 
wood  and  provisions,  with  humanity  to  shipwrecked  mariners. 

The  Dutch,  naturally  anxious  to  play  a  part  as  a  Power  in- 
strumental in  opening  the  country  they  had  once  striven  so 
hard  to  close  to  all  but  themselves,  got  rid  of  some  of  the  most 
galling  and  humbling  of  the  conditions  of  their  own  position, 
by  a  convention  concluded  by  Mr.  Donker  Curtius,  the  Com- 
missioner, and  head  of  the  Dutch  factory. 

Then  came  the  Russians,  taught  the  value  of  Japanese  ports 
by  their  war  with  England  and  France ;  and  in  October,  1857, 
Admiral  Poutiatine  formed  a  treaty.  In  a  few  days  later,  the 
Dutch  again  returned  to  the  charge,  by  which  tradii^g  privi- 
leges were  secured  at  three  ports  —  Nagasaki,  Simoda,  and 
Hakodadi.  Next  followed  in  rapid  succession  American,  En  ■ 
glish,  and  French  treaties,  in  the  months  of  July  and  August 
of  1858;  and  the  wedge  was  finally  driven  home,  enlarging 
and  improving  the  conditions  and  privileges  of  trade.  By  these 
last  the  gates  of  Yeddo  were  forced — made  to  turn  upon  their 
rusty  hinges,  and  give  reluctant  passage,  for  the  first  time,  to 
Foreign  ministers  as  residents. 

Credit  may  have  been  justly  due  to  the  Japanese  Rulers — 
to  some,  at  least — for  having  had  the  sense  to  perceive  the 
time  had  come  when  their  exclusive  policy  could  no  longer  be 
safely  maintained,  and  the  prudence  not  to  provoke  a  collision 
with  the  Great  Powers  of  Europe,  Avhich  could  only  have  end- 
ed in  the  humiliation  and  discomfiture  of  the  nation.  The  Chi- 
nese had  appeared  more  blinded  with  conceit,  and  less  capable 
of  appreciating  the  futility  of  resistance,  and  the  hopelessness 
of  an  appeal  to  arms.  There  was  a  general  disposition  to  draw 
a  good  augury  from  this  for  our  future  relations  Avith  the  Jap- 
anese empire.  If  they  received  the  Diplomatic  agent  of  Great 
Britain  without  vain  protestations  of  inexpediency,  when  he 
should  present  himself,  without  previous  communication  or  an- 
nouncement, at  Yeddo,  then  time  and  patience,  it  might  natu- 
rally be  expected,  would  alone  be  required  to  secure  settled 
relations  of  amity  and  commerce. 


Chap.  IV.]  MISTAKEN  FEARS.  101 

But,  as  this  narrative  proceeds,  it  will  be  seen  there  were 
many  more  things  in  Japan  to  be  taken  note  of  than  had  en- 
tered into  the  philosophy  of  the  world  in  general  on  this  sub- 
ject. It  is  often  well,  indeed,  that  we  know  so  little  of  what 
lies  before  us  in  this  troubled  world,  whether  of  good  or  evil ! 
Knowledge  of  the  first  might  render  us  presumptuous ;  and 
of  the  second,  take  away  the  heart  and  courage  necessary  to 
make  a  good  fight.  The  Japanese  ruling  classes,  we  found 
later,  had  only  yielded  to  suggestions  of  danger,  chiefly  emana- 
ting from  what  proved  the  weaker  or  more  timid  party  in  the 
State,  and  were  as  hostile  to  foreigners  as  ever.  They  fell  into 
the  natural  mistake^  it  is  to  be  believed — judging  by  the  light 
of  after  events — that  Foreign  Powers,  one  and  all,  were  pre- 
pared to  go  to  war  with  them  if  they  refused  to  enter  into  all 
the  treaties  proposed.  In  their  conscious  state  of  unprepared- 
ness  for  resistance,  they  probably  thought  it  better  to  tempo- 
rize and  yield,  with  a  mental  reservation,  intending  to  retrace 
their  steps  when  time  and  opportunity  should  serve,  and  sat- 
isfied that  it  remained  in  their  own  hands,  in  the  mean  while, 
to  suspend  or  impede  the  execution  of  all  the  more  important 
stipulations. 

When  has  it  ever  been  otherwise  in  the  treaties  of  the 
Western  with  the  Eastern  races  ?  Yielding  under  moral  pres- 
sure (a  kind  of  euphuistic  phrase  for  coercion,  and  a  coercion 
which  has  a  great  deal  more  to  do  with  rifled  guns  and  frig- 
ates than  any  thing  moral  or  intellectual),  they  ever  reserve 
the  right  of  the  conquered  to  resist,  and  of  the  weak  to  feign 
acquiescence,  until  they  shall  feel  strong  enough  to  annul  by 
force  what  was  wrung  from  them  by  no  very  different  process. 
When  they  afterward  discovered,  as  there  is  no  doubt  they 
did,  that  they  yielded  to  a  vain  fear  in  the  first  treaty  entered 
into,  and  that  no  Foreign  Power,  even  later,  would  have  gone 
to  war  to  force  upon  them  a  Treaty  of  Commerce — least  of  all, 
the  United  States  of  America — the  wrath  and  indignation  of 
the  more  violent  party  in  the  State  exploded,  and  has  ever  since 
been  a  source  of  peril.  But  this  was  not  the  revelation  of  the 
hour.  It  came  later,  and  with  much  unwillingness  was  re- 
ceived. 

On  the  2Cth  of  June,  H.M.S. '  Sampson'  cast  anchor  where 
the  '  Furious,'  with  Lord  Elgin,  had  last  been  seen,  immediate- 
ly opposite  the  city.  It  was  a  critical  moment.  By  treaty, 
Great  Britain  was  no  doubt  entitled  to  send  a  diplomatic  agent 
to  reside  in  Yeddo;  but  the  Japanese  Government  had  very 
strongly  urged  upon  Lord  Elgin,  to  the  last,  their  earnest  de- 
sire that  no  Representative  should  actually  be  nominated  until 


102  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  IV. 

1863,  on  the  plea  that  the  populai-  feelmg  against  foreigners 
was  likely  to  be  ai'oused,  if  so  great  a  change  were  attempted 
before  there  was  time  to  prepare  the  public  mind. 

Her  Majesty's  Government  had  not  seen  fit  to  accede  to  this 
request,  and  no  previous  notice  had  been  sent  that  a  British 
diplomatic  agent  was  on  his  way.  I  had  determined,  there- 
fore, that  the  wisest  com-se  under  these  circumstances  was  to 
steam  right  up  to  the  anchorage  outside  the  batteries,  and 
take  it  for  granted  that  the  Japanese  Government  was  pre- 
pared to  give  effect  to  the  treaty  in  all  its  stipulations.  But 
what  if  they  met  me  with  serious  remonstrance  as  to  the  dan- 
ger a  residence  in  Yeddo  would  entail  upon  the  Japanese  Gov- 
ernment and  foreigners  generally  throughout  the  country,  and 
refuse  to  accept  the  responsibility  or  guarantee  the  safety  of  a 
Mission  in  the  capital  ?  All  this  had  to  be  duly  weighed — 
and  risked. 

Accordingly,  on  my  arrival,  a  letter  to  the  Ministers  of  For- 
eign Affairs  was  ready  to  be  sent  on  shore,  announcing  ray 
presence,  and  requesting  a  residence  to  be  assigned,  that  I  might 
disembark  with  as  little  delay  as  possible.  It  was  not  long  be- 
fore some  officials  came  off  to  know  our  business,  arijd  they  re- 
ceived the  letter  for  answer.  Nor  had  I  long  to  wait  for  the 
reply.  It  came  the  next  day,  followed  by  a  visit  from  two  of 
the  Governors  of  Foreign  Affairs,  bringing  congratulations 
from  the  government  on  my  safe  arrival.  This  relieved  me  of 
some  anxiety ;  and  I  had  the  more  reason  to  congi-atulate  my- 
self, because  my  American  colleague,  Mr.  Harris,  who  followed 
me  a  few  days  later  from  Simoda,  where  he  had  hitherto  re- 
sided, had  not  escaped  pressing  invitations  from  the  govern- 
ment to  defer  his  departure  for  the  capital. 

Very  glad  to  find  the  first  anticipated  difficulty  no  longer  in 
my  way,  I  proceeded  immediately  to  the  most  pressing  busi- 
ness, the  selection  of  a  temple  for  a  provisional  residence  and 
Consulate  General;  and  having  mentioned  the  two  placed  at 
the  disposal  of  Lord  Elgin  and  Baron  Gros  respectively  in 
1858,  plans  not  only  of  these,  but  of  two  others,  were  sent  the 
following  day,  with  an  offer  to  conduct  any  member  of  the  es- 
tablishment to  examine  and  select  from  the  whole. 

This  seemed  a  matter  of  such  moment  that  I  determined  to 
land  privately  myself.  Accordingly,  on  the  third  day  after  my 
arrival,  accompanied  by  Captain  Hand,  we  were  pulling  toward 
the  shore  on  a  visit  of  inspection.  Little  of  the  capital,  vast  as 
it  is,  can  be  seen  from  the  anchorage,  which  is  outside  a  line  of 
batteries  built  some  two  miles  from  the  shore.  Fringed  with 
low  houses  and  trees,  some  higher  ground  appears  behind,  ap 


Chap.  IV.]    ANCHORAGE.— ABHORRENCE  OF  PAINT.  103 

parently  covered  with  wood.  Only  here  and  there  a  temple, 
or  the  white  walls  of  a  Daimio's  park,  can  be  distinguished. 

The  '  Sampson'  lay  full  four  miles  from  the  shore,  and  even 
then  only  in  three  fathoms  of  water.  The  bay  shoals  all  along 
the  banks  on  which  the  city  stands,  so  that,  at  low  water,  even 
a  ship's  boat  can  not  approach  witliin  a  mile!  Notwithstand- 
ing this  best  of  natural  defenses,  no  less  than  five  batteries, 
faced  with  guns  on  every  side,  interpose  between  the  deeper 
channel  and  the  city,  besides  several  on  shore ;  and  the  num- 
ber and  strength  of  these,  I  may  observe,  went  on  increasing 
continuously  from  the  arrival  of  the  Foreign  Representatives. 
There  is  thus  nothing  imposing  in  tiie  aspect  of  Yeddo  from 
the  bay.  This  is  partly  due,  as  I  have  indicated,  to  the  great 
amount  of  timber  every  where,  which  conceals  the  low  houses, 
in  many  cases  only  single-storied,  and  partly  to  the  formation 
of  the  ground,  high  land  interposing,  and  concealing  by  far  the 
larger  part  of  the  city.  The  batteries  midway  between  the 
anchorage  and  the  shore  are  the  most  conspicuous  objects, 
though  only  a  few  feet  above  high-water  mark.  They  are  sol- 
idly built  of  granite,  and  must  have  cost  immense  labor  in  lay- 
ing the  foundations.  In  their  low-level  line  and  general  aspect 
they  are  not  unlike  some  of  those  off  Cronstadt.  They  are 
well  kept,  with  green  turf  on  the  embankments,  over  which  the 
muzzles  of  the  guns  may  be  seen,  though  the  pieces  themselves 
are  carefully  protected  from  the  weather  and  too  curious  pry- 
ing by  wooden  sheds  or  coverings.  They  seemed,  for  the  most 
part,  of  light  calibre,  twelve  or  eighteen  pounders  apparently. 

Two  European  rigged  vessels  bearing  the  Japanese  flag — a 
red  sun  on  a  white  field — were  lying  outside,  and  below  the 
batteries.  One  of  these  was  the  Emperor's  yacht,  as  it  has 
been  the  fashion  to  call  it ;  that  is,  the  steam  vessel  sent  out  by 
our  government,  at  Admiral  Stirling's  suggestion,  as  a  present 
to  the  Tycoon,  which  has  been  called  the  '  Emperor.'  I  had 
heard  it  asserted  that  it  was  allowed  to  go  to  decay,  and  was 
neglected.  This  is  not  the  case,  however,  as  I  satisfied  myself 
the  next  day  by  personal  inspection.  The  painted  wood-work 
looked  shabby,  because  the  Japanese  abhor  paint  about  their 
ships,  and  had  consequently  been  steadily  engaged  in  scrub- 
bing it  off  ever  since  the  boat  had  come  into  their  possession, 
and  by  dint  of  labor  and  perseverance  had  nearly  succeeded. 
How  they  dispense  with  paint,  and  oil,  and  varnish  on  all  their 
boats  and  junks,  and  still  preserve  them  in  a  seaworthy  state, 
I  have  never  been  able  to  learn,  though  the  fact  is  indisputa- 
ble. They  char  the  keels,  and  more  than  once,  I  believe ;  but 
beyond  this,  they  seem  to  do  nothing  to  guard  the  wood  from 


104  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  IV. 

decay,  under  a  hot  sun,  and  tlio  alternate  processes  of  soaking 
and  drying.  This,  too,  in  the  land  of  lacker  and  varnish  ! 
They  must  apparently  have  found,  by  experience,  that  no  ade- 
quate advantage  was  derived  from  the  expenditure  of  either 
paint,  drying-oil,  or  varnish  ;  and  yet  this  runs  so  entirely  coun- 
ter to  our  own  experience,  that  it  has  always  been  a  matter  of 
speculation  to  me.  I  have  often  asked  naval  officers  if  they 
could  explaui  the  reason  for  this  diversity  of  practice,  but  nev- 
er obtained  any  satisfactory  answer ;  on  the  contrary,  the  re- 
ply generally  consisted  of  an  affirmation  of  the  absolute  neces- 
sity of  paint ;  indeed,  like  the  receipts  in  Mrs.  Glasse's  cook- 
ery-book in  respect  to  butter,  it  was  quite  evidently  their  firm 
conviction  that '  the  more  paint  tlie  better !'  How  far  this  set- 
tled bias  in  favor  of  abundance  of  painty  in  the  minds  of  my 
naval  friends,  may  arise  from  the  alleged  fact  of  its  scarcity, 
and  the  universal  complaint  of  smart  first  lieutenants  that  they 
are  stinted  and  never  have  enoicgh^l  do  not  venture  to  determ- 
ine ;  but  after  a  time  I  gave  up  farther  inquiries  in  that  quar- 
ter, plainly  perceiving  that  all  had  one  settled  conviction  in  fa- 
vor of  paint — more  paint — abundance  of  paint !  Sp  I  left  this 
irreconcilable  diiference  of  theory  and  practice  between  the 
naval  profession  of  Eui'ope  and  Japan  just  where  I  found  it. 
One  explanation,  indeed,  has  been  suggested  which  may  not  be 
far  from  the  truth,  namely,  that  wood  and  labor  both  being 
cheap,  it  is  less  expensive  to  build  new  boats  than  to  incur  the 
expense  of  paint  to  make  them  more  durable.  But  to  return 
to  the  yacht.  All  the  fine  imitation  satin-wood,  and  the  gilt- 
work,  was  found  reduced  to  a  very  forlorn  state  by  this  proc- 
ess of  incessant  scrubbing  ;  but  the  engines,  and  all  the  brass- 
work,  would  have  done  no  discredit  to  the  best  kept  man-of- 
war  in  our  service.  I  afterward  found  that  they  frequently 
got  up  her  steam  and  proceeded  with  her  to  different  points 
when  any  high  official  had  to  be  sent  on  the  Tycoon's  service, 
and  the  vessel  was  worked  entirely  by  Japanese. 

On  landing,  we  found  a  great  crowd  of  the  inhabitants  eag- 
er to  see  the  strangers ;  but  the  police  mustered  strong,  and 
we  were  in  no  way  incommoded,  save  by  the  awkward  at- 
tempts we  had  to  make  before  we  could  succeed  in  doubling 
oiirselves  up  so  as  to  pack  our  limbs  and  bodies  inside  the  Jap- 
anese palanquin,  called  a  norimon,  prior  to  our  being  suspend- 
ed from  the  shoulders  of  four  men,  two  before  and  two  behind, 
very  much  as  a  wild  beast  might  be  slung  in  a  cage  for  safe 
transport.  Here  is  a  fac-simile,  for  the  benefit  of  all  who  have 
never  seen  the  reality,  or  undergone  the  practical  torture  of 
cramped  limbs  and  a  half- dislocated  spine  within  its  narrow 
walls. 


Chap.  IV.]        JAPANESE  NOKIMON  AND  CANGO. 


105 


JAPANESE   NORIMON. 


We  are  often  told  that  no  man  is  so  miserable  but  he  may 
find  some  one  in  a  worse  state  than  himself — that,  in  every  ex- 
tremity of  evil,  there  is  still  '  a  lower  deep.'  Whatever  satis- 
faction or  comfort  may  be  derivable  from  this  source,  I  soon 
had  the  opportunity  of  trying ;  for  numerous  vehicles  passed 
to  and  fro,  carried  from  the  shoulders  also,  but  by  two  men,  be- 
ing evidently  of  much  lighter  construction,  and  only  used  by 
the  lower  classes. 


JAPANESE  CANOO. 


It  is  made  of  light  wicker-work,  and  consists  of  a  bottom, 
back,  and  fi*ont,  in  the  shape  of  a  truncated  *V,'  or  a  U  with 

£2 


106 


*rttREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


tCHAP.  IV. 


the  sides  pulled  out.  Into  the  bottom  the  Japanese  place  a 
cotton  quilt.  Here,  doubled  up  with  their  legs  beneath  them, 
looking  as  if  they  had  been  amputated  at  the  knees,  hundreds 
of  men  and  women  may  be  seen  in  the  streets  or  on  the  high- 
way, traveling  for  hours,  and  on  a  whole  day's  journey,  appar- 
ently without  serious  fatigue  or  discomfort.  Nothing,  indeed, 
has  ever  seemed  to  me  more  wonderful  than  the  way  in  which 
Japanese  men,  women,  and  children  take  their  ease  and  repose, 
asleep  or  awake.  A  Japanese  quite  at  his  ease,  and  sans  gene, 
as  naturally  drops  on  his  heels  and  squats,  with  no  more  solid 
support  to  his  person  than  his  legs  or  heels  can  afford,  as  an 
Englishman  drops  into  a  chair  when  he  is  tired. 

As  soon  as  the  babe  leaves  its  mother's  breast,  the  first  thing 
it  learns  is  not  to  walk  or  to  run,  but  to  squat  on  its  heels  in 
this  baboon  fashion.  If  the  Japanese  are  on  ceremony,  then 
they  sink  on  the  mats,  resting  jointly  on  heels  and  knees. 
And  this  attitude  also,  which  would  be  torture  to  us,  they 
maintain  for  hours  apparently  without  serious  inconvenience. 
Finally,  the  day's  labor  over,  or  the  time  for  siesta  in  the  heat 
of  the  day  arrived,  they  throw  themselves  down  full  length  on 
the  mat,  with  a  little  padded  rest,  just  large  enough  to  receive 
the  occiput  or  the  angle  of  the 
jaw,  and  sleep  as  soundly  as 
the  most  fastidious  with  a 
feather  pillow  and  bed. 

ni 


HOW  JAPANESE  REST, 


JAPANESE  PAGE  IN  ATTENDANCE. 


As  we  slowly  wended  our  way  through  the  streets,  I  had 
full  opportunity  of  observing  the  absence  of  all  the  things  we 
deem  so  essential  to  comfort,  and  which  crowd  our  rooms  al- 


Chap.  IV.]  JAPANESE  CUSTOMS.  107 


now   THE   JAPANESE    SLEEP. 


most  to  the  exclusion,  and  certainly  to  the  great  inconvenience 
of  the  people  who  are  intended  to  occupy  them,  as  well  as  to 
the  great  detriment  of  the  proprietor's  purse. 

If  European  joints  could  only  be  made  supple  enough  to  en- 
able their  owners  to  dispense  with  sofas  and  chairs,  and,  jsar 
consequence,  with  tables,  and  we  were  hardy  enough  to  lie  on 
clean  mats,  six  feet  by  three,  stuffed  with  fine  straw,  and  beau- 
tifully made  with  a  silk  border,  so  as  to  form  a  sort  of  reticu- 
lated carpet  for  rooms  of  any  size,  the  solution  of  that  much- 
debated  question,  the  possibility  of  marrying  on  £400  a  year, 
might  certainly  be  predicted  with  something  like  unanimity 
in  favor  of  matrimony.  The  upholsterer's  bill  never  can  offer 
any  impediment  to  a  young  couple  in  Japan.  Their  future 
house  is  taken,  containing  generally  three  or  four  little  rooms, 
in  which  clean  mats  are  put.  Each  then  brings  to  the  house- 
keeping a  cotton-stuffed  quilt  and  a  box  of  wearing  apparel  for 
their  own  personal  use ;  a  pan  to  cook  the  rice,  half  a  dozen 
lacker  cups  and  trays  to  eat  off;  a  large  tub  to  bathe  and  wash 
in  are  added  on  the  general  account,  and  these  complete  the 
establishment ! 

I  think  this  the  nearest  approach  to  Arcadian  simplicity  that 
has  yet  been  made ;  and  I  recommend  it  to  the  serious  con- 
sideration of  all  who  are  perplexed  with  the  difficulties  of  set- 
ting up  an  establishment  upon  a  small  income,  and  keeping  it 
up  afterward  ;  often  the  most  arduous  part  of  the  undertaking. 

But  not  even  speculations  of  such  interest  and  philanthropic 
scope  could  prevent  limbs  aching  with  the  cramped  position 
which  my  cage  imposed.  Nor  did  the  jolting  motion  of  the 
bearers  tend  to  make  it  less  irksome.  But  what,  perhaps,  was 
more  objectionable  still,  the  range  of  the  eye  was  quite  as 
cramped  as  the  rest  of  the  body ;  for,  in  order  to  see  out  of 
the  windows,  it  was  necessary  to  risk  a  dislocation  of  the  cer- 
vical vertebra;  to  get  the  head  at  a  proper  angle.  So  at  last, 
these  combined  evils  becoming  intolerable,  I  determined,  with 


108  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  IV. 

the  rest  of  my  party  to  walk ;  since,  as  we  were  '  naihun!  (the 
exact  rendering  in  Japanese,  it  seems,  of  our  borrowed  term 
incognito)^  there  could  be  no  compromise  of  dignity.  And 
now,  for  the  first  time,  we  began  to  have  some  idea  of  what 
the  streets  were  like  through  which  we  were  passing. 

We  landed  on  the  banks  of  a  canal  which  surrounds  some 
pleasure-grounds  and  a  fishing  summer-house  of  the  Tycoon, 
where  every  thing,  seen  from  the  outside,  appeared  fresh,  and 
green,  and  park-like.  And  we  were  still  in  what  was  called 
the  '  official  quarter'  when  our  walk  began. 

The  first  temple  visited  was  that  which  had  been  occupied 
by  Baron  Gros,  situated  immediately  beneath  the  Tycoon's 
Cemetery,  another  finely- wooded  park,  containing  within  its 
wide  area  a  town  of  temples  and  priests'  quarters.  But  the 
actual  space  included  in  the  ground  occupied  by  the  building 
now  offered  was  very  confined,  and  the  building  altogether  too 
small  to  afford  the  required  accommodation  for  so  large  a 
party  as  I  brought  with  me  on  the  public  establishment.  The 
temporary  cook-house  and  bath-rooms,  run  up  with  slight 
planking  for  Baron  Gros,  still  existed,  though  in  a  piteously 
dilapidated  state.  Something,  I  thought,  might  possibly  have 
been  done  in  the  way  of  enlargement  and  improvement,  pro- 
vided the  adjoining  grounds  had  been  open  for  purposes  of 
recreation  and  exercise.  But  not  only  was  this  held  to  be 
*  impossible,' but  one  of  the  conditions  of  tenure  was  rather 
objectionable,  namely,  that  the  Tycoon,  on  his  way  to  the  cem- 
etery, passed  through  the  house  or  inclosure,  I  forget  which, 
and  no  fires  could  be  lit  on  those  days.  I  declined  it  at  once, 
therefore ;  and  as  it  was  reported  that  Lord  Elgin's  former 
habitation,  though  more  roomy  and  less  confined,  scarcely  af- 
forded the  required  space,  we  proceeded,  on  the  earnest  rec- 
ommendation of  one  of  the  officials,  to  inspect  a  '  large  and 
beautiful  temple,'  as  he  assured  me,  situated  on  the  edge  of 
the  bay,  with  all  the  requisite  conditions  of  ample  accommo- 
dation, spacious  grounds,  and  easy  communication  with  the 
water. 

It  was  on  this  occasion  I  made  my  first  acquaintance  with 
Moriyama,  and  he  deserves  a  special  introduction.  He  was 
the  chief  of  the  Interpreters,  and  a  much  more  important  per- 
sonage than  his  official  title  would  indicate.  He  has  been  de- 
scribed, and  sketched,  and  photographed  in  all  the  accounts 
that  have  appeared  of  the  several  Missions  to  Japan ;  for  on 
him  has  devolved  the  labor  of  translating  into  the  Japanese 
version  all  the  treaties,  from  Commodore  Perry's  in  1854,  to 
Count  Eulenberg's  in  1860.     On  him  it  depends,  in  all  the  in- 


Ghap.IV.]  MORIYAMA,  the  interpreter.  109 

terviews  with  the  Ministers  of  Foreign  Affairs,  whether  the 
confereuces  witli  the  several  Ibreigu  representatives  are  cor- 
rectly or  intelligibly  rendered.  Nearly  all  the  correspondence 
with  the  foreign  representatives  passes  through  his  hands  also, 
a  service,  it  appears,  involving  some  danger  as  well  as  respon- 
sibility ;  for  when  the  last  American  treaty,  framed  by  Mr. 
Harris,  was  signed,  a  violent  reactionary  movement  taking 
place  among  the  leading  Daimios,  all  the  ministers  were  dis- 
gi'aced,  and  Moriyama  was  made  to  share  in  the  downfall  of 
his  employers. 

Moriyama  spoke  a  little  English  then,  but  he  has  since  been 
to  England  with  the  Mission,  and  made  great  progress  in  the 
language  during  his  passage  home  with  me.  The  interpreters 
in  Yeddo  hitherto  have  only  spoken  in  Dutch — the  Dutch  of 
two  centuries  back,  and  very  embarrassing  to  those  fresh  from 
Europe,  from  the  use  of  old  and  obsolete  forms  of  expression, 
which,  with  all  the  tenacity  of  a  Japanese  who  understands 
nothing  of  the  mutation  of  languages,  or  progressive  theories 
of  any  kind,  they  are  ready  to  maintain  is  the  only  true  and 
pure  Dutch,  all  more  modern  phraseology  being  spurious ;  like 
our  descendants  in  New  England,  who  have  preserved  so  many 
obsolete  phrases  that  they  pique  themselves  on  maintaining, 
with  greater  success  than  the  English  themselves,  the  language 
of  the  old  country  '  pure  and  undefiled.'  It  was  amusing, 
sometimes,  to  hear  them  sparring  on  this  subject  with  the  Le- 
gation Interpreter,  a  gentleman  brought  up  in  Holland,  and  to 
mark  the  astonishment  of  the  latter  on  being  told  by  his  Jap- 
anese colleague  that  he  really  did  not  know  Dutch  grammati- 
cally !  This  is  only  to  be  matched  by  my  Canton  Comprador, 
who  came  to  me  once  in  China,  when  I  had  a  visitor  in  the 
house,  fresh  arrived  from  England, '  Massa,  no  man  sabie  what 
that  man  want;  he  no  taXkee proper  English  !' 

The  route  soon  led  out  of  the  official  quarter,  and  through  a 
part  of  the  city  dedicated  to  commerce ;  but,  without  stopping 
to  describe  all  that  was  striking  and  novel  in  the  general  as- 
pect, it  will  be  better  to  go  straight  forward  to  the  object  of 
our  perambulations,  the  temple  of  T'ozengee^  one  of  the  largest 
and  best  endowed  in  Yeddo,  under  the  patronage  more  espe- 
cially of  the  Prince  of  Xendai,  one  of  the  great,  semi-indepen- 
dent Daimios,  with  vast  territories,  and  a  large  number  of  sub- 
jects under  his  rule.  During  our  walk  I  had  been  assured 
there  was  no  finer  site  or  grounds  in  Yeddo,  and  that  it  had 
been  specially  destined  for  the  British  Representative.  I  can 
not  say  I  had  much  faith  in  my  informant's  perfect  truthful- 
ness, and  therefore  was  agreeably  surprised.     On  turning  off 


110  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  fCHAP.  IV. 

the  Tocado  (as  the  great  high  road  through  the  island  is  called, 
and  which  skirts  the  bay  here),  we  passed  through  a  gate  giv- 
ing entrance  to  a  long  avenue  of  cryptomerias  and  pines ;  then 
through  a  second  more  imposing  gateway  of  two  stoi'ies,  across 
an  open  square  with  lotus  ponds,  and  trees  on  each  side,  and 
finally,  by  an  entrance  to  the  right,  through  another  court-yard, 
and  gained  a  fine  suite  of  apartments  looking  on  to  as  beauti- 
ful a  specimen  of  Japanese  garden  and  grounds  as  can  well  be 
conceived.  A  lawn  was  immediately  in  front,  beyond  a  little 
lake,  across  which  was  a  rustic  bridge  (destined  later  to  play 
a  prominent  part  in  a  scene  of  blood) ;  and  beyond  this  again, 
palm  trees  and  azaleas,  large  bushes  trimly  cropped  into  the 
semblance  of  round  hillocks,  while  the  background  w^as  filled 
up  with  a  noble  screen  of  timber,  composed  of  the  finest  of  all 
Japanese  trees,  the  evergreen  oak  and  the  maple.  Palms  and 
bamboos  were  interspersed,  and  a  drooping  plum  -  tree  was 
trained  over  one  end  of  the  rustic  bridge  giving  passage  across 
the  lake.  To  the  right,  a  steep  bank  shut  in  the  view,  covered 
equally  with  a  great  variety  of  flowering  shrubs  and  the  ground 
bamboo,  and  crowned  with  more  of  the  same  timber.  Through 
this  a  path  led  upward  by  a  zigzag  flight  of  steps  to  a  fine 
avenue  of  trees,  the  end  of  which  widened  into  a  platform, 
whence  a  wide  view  of  the  bay  and  part  of  the  city  below 
could  be  obtained,  with  a  perfectly  scenic  efiect.  The  distant 
view  was  set  in  a  framework  of  foliage,  formed  by  the  branches 
and  trunks  of  pine-trees,  towering,  from  fifty  to  a  hundred  feet 
high,  into  the  blue  sky  above.  If  Japan  could  only  be  viewed 
as  a  place  of  exile,  it  must  be  confessed  a  more  beautiful  her- 
mitage could  not  have  been  chosen ;  and  I  felt  almost  doubt- 
ful whether  a  I'etreat  so  perfect  in  every  respect  could  possibly 
have  fallen  to  my  lot  without  some  terrible  drawback.  It 
seemed  too  much  to  be  so  easily  realized,  and  at  so  little  cost. 
I  well  remember  the  feeling,  now  that  years  have  passed  over 
my  head,  and  revealed  what  I  could  then  so  little  foresee,  that 
in  the  midst  of  all  this  picturesque  beauty,  a  scene  at  once  so 
fair  and  peaceful,  I,  and  at  a  year's  interval  the  Charge  d'Af- 
faires  in  my  absence,  were  each  destined  to  be  hunted  for  our 
lives  by  armed  bravoes  thirsting  for  our  blood,  and  feel  that  no 
human  strength  or  art  could  make  such  a  position  defensible. 
Sunk  as  the  house  is  in  a  hollow,  surrounded  by  wood,  and 
open  on  all  sides  to  attack,  efiective  defense  is  indeed  impossi- 
ble, and  the  stealthy  approach  of  the  midnight  assassin  may 
bring  him  close  to  his  victim  under  cover.  Well,  indeed,  is  it 
ordered  that  our  knowledge  of  the  future  is  a  total  blank. 
Had  I  foreseen  what  was  to  be,  how  much  of  pleasure  and 


Chap.  IV.]  TROUBLES  OF  INSTALLATION. 


Ill 


TBDOO   FROM   THE    AVENUE. 


peace,  in  a  sense  of  security,  I  should  have  lost,  and  how 
wretchedly  the  two  years  preceding  the  first  attempt  at  a  mas- 
sacre would  have  dragged  on  in  this  seemingly  earthly  para- 
dise !  It  left  nothing  to  be  desired  as  a  place  to  live  in ;  and 
the  real  objection,  that  it  was  a  very  likely  place  to  die  in,  did 
not  strike  the  mind,  though  obviously  enough  a  very  bad  loca- 
tion in  which  to  defend  one's  self  From  the  end  of  the  avenue, 
through  which  a  midday  sun  could  only  pour  a  checkered  ar- 
abesque of  light  and  shade,  the  bay  stretched  far  away  a  thou- 
sand feet  below,  basking  in  the  full  glare  of  sunshine,  and  mak- 
ing the  deep  cool  shade  of  the  terrace,  with  its  thick  screen  of 
green  leaves,  all  the  more  enjoyable  by  contrast.  It  is  true  it 
swarmed  with  musquitoes :  this  little  disadvantage  I  perceived 
at  once,  but  it  was  only  later  that  I  had  the  satisfaction  of 
learning  it  was  celebrated  all  over  Yeddo  for  its  breed !  But, 
even  with  the  place  at  my  disposal,  and  it  may  well  be  sup- 
posed I  did  not  hesitate  in  my  choice,  all  was  not  sunshine 
with  its  priestly  owners.  I  fancy  they  saw  this  intrusion  of 
the  Tojin  (foreigner)  into  their  sacred  precincts  with  little 
satisfaction.  The  lay  proprietor  of  the  domain,  the  Prince  of 
Xendai,  had  not  the  reputation  of  being  very  friendly  to  us ; 
and  I  have  never  been  able  to  discover  by  what  tenure  these 
temples  are  held,  to  be  so  entirely,  as  they  seem,  at  the  disposal 


112  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  IV. 

of  the  Tycoon's  govenuueut.  Many  of  them,  as  this  temple 
of  Tozengee,  are  built  and  endowed  by  Daimios  out  of  their 
own  property.  Sometimes,  to  escape  the  cares  and  responsi- 
bilities of  a  Daimio's  life,  neither  few  nor  light  in  Japan,  they 
voluntarily  resign  all  their  possessions  to  a  son  as  soon  as  they 
have  one  of  age,  lay  down  their  powei-,  and  retire  to  one  of 
these  temples,  living  in  retirement,  with  shaven  crowns,  for  the 
rest  of  their  lives.  This,  perhaps,  may  account  for  the  fact  that 
to  every  temple  there  is  attached  a  suite  of  apartments,  larger 
or  smaller,  according  to  its  pretensions,  where  guests  and  offi- 
cial personages  may  find  teraporai-y  accommodation.  But  as 
regards  Yeddo,  whatever  may  be  the  tenure,  it  would  appear 
the  Tycoon,  with  or  without  the  consent  of  the  lay  proprietor, 
disposes  of  this  part  of  the  accommodation  whenever  he  re- 
quires it. 

The  difficulty  I  encountered,  and  which  cost  me  a  stout  fight 
of  more  than  an  hour's  duration,  was  the  alleged  inability  of 
the  Tycoon  to  compel  the  priests  to  give  up  any  portion  of  the 
building  or  grounds  habitually  occupied  by  them,  and  their 
unAvillingness  to  treat  on  any  basis  of  equivalent  compensation, 
which  I  readily  offered,  for  the  surrender  of  an  additional  set 
of  rooms  and  a  court-yard,  absolutely  essential  for  the  putting 
up  of  a  large  establishment  of  Europeans  and  their  servants, 
with  stables,  store-rooms,  etc. 

This  was  my  first  trial,  and  I  had  more  than  once  well-nigh 
given  it  up  in  despair,  and  gone  elsewhere.  And  this  I  had  to 
intimate,  finally,  before  I  succeeded  in  obtaining  such  extension 
as  I  knew  to  be  absolutely  necessary.  When  well-nigh  wea- 
ried out,  enough  was  at  last  obtained,  foot  by  foot,  to  enable 
me  to  make  an-angements  for  putting  every  one  up  decently, 
though  certainly  not  luxuriously.  By  a  different  disposition 
of  sliding  panels  (delightful  style  of  architecture,  when,  like 
Mr.  Briggs,  you  have  to  turn  the  parlor  into  the  passages),  and 
with  the  aid  of  carpenters  to  adjust  them,  and  masons  to  build 
kitchens,  stables,  and  out-houses  in  the  yard,  that  it  had  cost  so 
much  hard  fighting  to  win,  all  in  the  establishment  were  ar- 
ranged for.  The  Japanese  officials  finally  took  their  leave,  and 
we  bade  each  other  good-by,  both  probably  well  satisfied  that 
at  least  one  troublesome  business  was  settled,  and  there  was 
no  more  to  be  asked  or  refused.  I  dare  say  the  room  demand- 
ed for  half  a  dozen  Europeans  was  considered  very  exorbitant, 
our  modes  of  life  are  so  different ;  and  then  the  upholstery !  I 
had  tables,  and  chairs,  and  bedsteads,  and  sofas  enough  to  fill 
up  entirely  the  first  three  rooms  they  placed  at  my  disposal. 
I  think  it  very  possible  Moriyama  and  his  superiors,  when  our 


Chap.  IV.]  TROUBLES  OF  INSTALLATION.  113 

backs  were  turned,  may  have  mutually  exclaimed, '  What  fools 
these  foreigners  are,  that  they  can  not  live  without  such  a  mass 
of  four-legged  encumbrances,  which  destroy  the  mats,  and  leave 
no  room  either  to  move  or  to  sleep  in !'  And  there  have  been 
moments  in  my  numerous  translations  from  place  to  place  in 
the  East,  when,  if  I  had  heard  such  a  comment,  I  might  cer- 
tainly have  chimed  in  with  a  very  cordial  Amen ! 

I  have  not  yet  forgotten  the  rush  and  turmoil  consequent  on 
the  transport  of  two  hundred  cases  into  the  once  secluded  tem- 
ple grounds,  the  contents  of  all  being  wanted  at  once  by  half 
a  dozen  different  proprietors — masters  and  their  servants  seek- 
ing vainly  to  evoke  some  order  out  of  such  a  chaos  and  emhar- 
ras  de  richesse — English,  French,  Dutch,  Japanese,  and  Chi- 
nese, a  polyglot  of  languages,  all  adding  their  quota  to  other 
elements  of  confusion. 

It  vi^as  a  very  Malakoff  in  Tozengee  that  day.  Legs  of  sofas 
were  met  in  despairing  search  of  their  bodies ;  sideboards  on 
their  backs,  waiting  prostrate  for  their  supports ;  beds  which 
could  not  find  their  bedsteads ;  chairs,  as  1  have  said,  only  fit 
for  Chelsea  Hospital,  and  with  so  many  broken  legs  and  dam- 
aged arms  that  future  service  seemed  quite  out  of  the  question. 
Then  came  the  crockery  and  glass  chaos,  quite  a  department 
of  its  own  —  urged  into  active  commotion  by  the  conscious 
sense,  among  the  living  agents,  that  some  twenty  people,  be- 
fore dark,  would  be  vicious  for  want  of  food  and  drink,  and 
clamorous  for  both.  To  crown  our  troubles,  the  whole  of  the 
cutlery  was  missing.  Nobody  could  find  the  box  with  the 
knives  and  forks !  Nor  were  they  discovered  for  three  weeks. 
So  carefully  had  they  been  packed  away,  that  all  trace  of  their 
place  of  concealment  had  been  lost. 

Fortunately,  the  most  grievous  times  come  to  an  end ;  and 
when  people  are  utterly  exhausted  and  worn  out  with  fatigue, 
they  '  drink  deep  of  all  the  blessedness  of  sleep,'  beds  or  no 
beds,  if  not  wholly  supperless. 

But  the  capital  of  the  Tycoon,  though  it  has  been  traversed, 
has  yet  to  be  described,  and  deserves  a  chapter  to  itself.  The 
installation  of  a  new  Legation  in  an  Eastern  land  is  a  rude  un- 
dertaking, trying  to  the  patience  as  well  as  the  strength  of  the 
first  pioneers,  and  could  not  possibly  be  dismissed  with  a  cur- 
sory notice.  It  is  not  often  that  a  description  appears  in  print, 
and  yet,  like  most  other  trials  in  this  life,  it  has  its  ludicrous 
side,  and  we  can  afford  to  look  back  upon  it  with  a  smile,  how- 
ever grimly  we  may  have  stood  on  the  battle-field,  with  pack- 
ing-cases for  the  enemy,  and  hungry  assailants  with  hammer 
and  chisel  tearing  out  their  entrails,  preparatory  to  a  final  act 
condemning  them  to  an  auto  dafe  to  supply  the  place  of  fuel. 


114  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  V 


CHAPTER  V. 

The  Capital  and  its  Environs. — Stereoscopic  Views  of  Town  and  Country. 

Before  proceeding  fartlier  in  this  iiarrjilive  of  a  long  resi- 
dence at  the  Court  of  the  Tycoon,  I  would  iain  give  something 
in  the  way  of  description  which  should  answer  the  purpose  of 
a  series  of  stereoscopic  views,  embracing  not  only  the  outward 
aspect  of  the  capital  and  sui*rounding  country — of  houses  and 
sti'cets,  temples  and  Daimios'  Yamaskas,*  hill  and  bay,  field 
and  hamlet,  such  as  would  be  presented  to  the  eye  of  a  travel- 
er in  a  few  hours'  ride — but  the  life  and  varying  aspects  of  the 
city  and  its  inhabitants,  according  to  the  hour  of  the  day  or 
the  season  of  the  year.  Only  thus  will  any  casual  reader  be 
able  thoroughly  to  realize  the  scene  in  which  many  of  the  prin- 
cipal events  and  incidents  hereafter  to  be  related  were  acted. 
Without  such  aid  it  would  indeed  be  impossible  for  those  at  a 
distance  to  enter  into  and  understand  the  strange  life  into 
which  the  Diplomatic  Agents  of  Western  Powers  were  sud- 
denly thrown,  constrained  to  fight  their  way  among  hostile 
factions,  and  through  dangers  and  difficulties  unknown  to  the 
Legations  ov'  Europe.  '  Western  diplomacy  and  Eastern  pol- 
icy' form  a  chapter  in  the  history  of  international  relations 
which  has  yet  to  be  written  ;  and  not  the  least  curious  or  im- 
portant of  the  materials  for  such  a  chapter,  it  will  be  seen,  may- 
be drawn  from  a  narrative  of  oiu-  relations  with  Japan  and  its 
long-secluded  race  during  the  first  years  of  our  residence  at 
the  capital.  But  it  would  lose  much  of  its  interest  if  the  read- 
er could  form  no  picture  in  his  mind  of  what  the  Japanese  are 
like — how  they  '  live,  and  move,  and  have  their  being ;'  in  a 
word,  of  the  leading  features  which  characterize  both  the  peo- 
ple and  their  country. 

To  traverse  Europe,  and  the  whole  breadth  of  Asia,  and  find 
the  living  embodiment  of  a  state  of  society  which  existed  many 
centuries  ago  in  the  West,  but  has  long  passed  utterly  away ; 
to  mark  its  reproduction,  in  all  the  details  and  distinctive  char- 
acters (only  with  much  greater  knowledge  of  the  arts  of  life, 
and  a  more  advanced  material  civilization  in  the  body  of  the 
nation),  is  certainly  a  novel  condition,  well  calculated  to  give 
additional  piquancy  to  the  details  of  life  in  Japan  in  this  nine- 
*  The  name  of  the  residence  of  a  Prince  or  Daimio. 


Chap,  v.]  JAPAN  AS  IT  IS.  116 

teentli  century.  It  is,  therefore,  with  deliberate  forethought, 
and  in  order  that  the  reader  may  more  fully  realize  this  Oriental 
phase  of  feudalism,  such  as  our  ancestors  knew  it  in  the  time 
of  the  Plantagenets,  that  I  would  pray  him  to  keep  the  stereo- 
scopic tube  to  his  eye,  and  shut  out  all  preconceived  views 
and  all  surrounding  objects  which  speak  of  a  later  age  and  a 
different  race.  We  are  going  back  to  the  twelfth  century  in 
Europe,  for  there  alone  shall  we  find  the  counterpart,  in  many 
essential  particulars,  of 'Japan  as  it  is.' 

Perhaps  a  ride  through  the  streets  and  environs  of  Yeddo, 
at  different  hours  of  the  day  and  seasons  of  the  year,  noting 
how  the  very  streets  and  houses  change  their  physiognomy,  is, 
after  all,  not  only  the  most  pleasant  and  least  laborious  mode  of 
studying  the  '  Civilization,  Manners,  and  Customs  of  the  Jap- 
anese, in  their  physical,  political,  and  social  conditions,'  but 
one  calculated  to  give  a  livelier  and  a  truer  conception  of  what 
these  political  and  social  conditions  are  than  more  systematic 
methods,  to  which  ambitious  compilers  of  old  materials  have 
given  such  exhaustive  title-pages. 

Our  way  lies  first  along  the  edge  of  the  bay,  under  the  bluff 
which  skirts  it,  where  the  suburb  of  Sinagawa  merges  into  the 
city,  much  as  Kensington  straggles  into  London.  Along  the 
ill-paved  road  (the  worst  bit  for  fifty  miles  in  a  country  re- 
markable for  the  finest  macadamized  roads  in  the  world)  we 
pick  our  way.  The  bay,  stretching  to  the  right,  is  occasionally 
shut  out  by  rows  of  houses,  many  of  which  are  tea-houses,  and 
some  only  mere  arbors  for  travelers  coming  from  afar  to  sit 
and  rest  in,  while  they  sip  their  tea  and  enjoy  the  fair  prospect 
of  the  rippling  waters  and  distant  shores  on  the  one  side,  or 
the  ways  and  manners  of  the  Capital  if  they  turn  to  the  great 
high  road.  This  road  forms,  in  fact,  the  main  street  here.  So, 
as  we  pace  gently  along,  not  to  incommode  the  never-failing 
stream  of  pedestrians,  of 'Norimons,'  and '  Cangos,'  varied  now 
and  then  by  a  group  of  Yakonins  on  horseback,  or  some  Da- 
imio's  cortege  of  mixed  horse  and  foot,  with  spear  and  halberd, 
crest  and  pennon,  as  in  olden  days  in  other  lands,  we  have  time 
to  peer  into  the  shops,  open  in  front,  and  through  the  shops  to 
the  small  back  room,  which  generally  forms  the  whole  interior, 
and  the  region  of  domestic  duties.  The  shops  are  of  all  kinds, 
but  none  in  this  quarter  of  the  town  are  of  very  great  size  or 
importance.  The  common  necessaries  of  life  are  on  sale  in 
many.  There  are  booksellers',  shops  of  bronze  and  copper 
ware,  pawnbrokers',  and  old  iron  shops.  Bath-houses,  coopers 
and  basket-makers,  armorers  and  sword-makers,  with  here  and 
there  a  stall  of  ready-made  clothes,  or  a  print-shop,  fill  up  the 


116  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  V. 

list.  Every  hundred  steps,  more  or  less,  we  pass  a  ward-gate, 
which  at  night  they  can  close  if  an  alarm  of  thieves  is  given, 
or  by  day  if  any  disturbance  should  arise,  while  a  sort  of  de- 
crepit municipal  guard  is  kept  in  a  lodge  at  each,  supposed  to 
be  responsible  for  the  peace  of  their  M'ards,  and  to  be  ever  vigi- 
lant !  Some,  as  we  pass,  rush  out  with  a  long  iron  pole,  to  the 
top  of  which  rings  are  attached,  and  make  a  distracting  noise 
when  the  lower  end  is  struck  on  the  ground.  This  is  consid- 
ered an  honor,  but  one  to  which  my  horses  generally  showed 
such  a  decided  objection,  that  the  warders  in  all  my  more  usual 
beats  learned  at  last  to  dispense  with  it  on  ordinary  occasions, 
so  now  we  pass  unhonored  and  immolested,  with  the  farther  ad- 
vantage of  seeing  how  a  Japanese  keeps  vigilant  guard.  There 
they  are,  three  in  number,  two  old  men  and  a  boy,  squatted  on 
their  knees,  the  eldest  half  dozing,  the  other  two  drawing,  by 
long  inhalation,  the  smoke  out  of  their  small  copper-headed 
pipes,  and  drawing  away  their  existence. 

After  a  mile  of  the  Tocado,  our  road  turns  off  into  a  side 
street,  narrower  and  more  crowded.  A  Daimio's  residence  ex- 
tends the  greater  part  of  its  length  on  one  side,  with  a  large  and 
imposing-looking  gateway  in  the  centre,  from  which  stretches 
a  long  line  of  barred  windows.  Through  these  the  faces  of 
men,  women,  and  cluldren  may  be  seen,  eagerly  or  idly,  as  the 
case  may  be,  looking  at  the  passers-by.  A  small,  narrow,  and 
very  muddy  moat,  little  more  than  a  guttei',  keeps  all  intruders 
from  too  close  prying.  But  these  out-buildings  are  only  the 
quarters  of  the  numerous  retainers  attached,  as  in  Europe  in 
former  times,  to  every  baron  and  knight,  by  a  feudal  tenure, 
and  constituting  at  once  the  chief  sources  of  his  expenditure 
and  the  evidence  of  his  rank  or  power.  In  many  cases,  these 
extend  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile  on  each  side  of  the  main  entrance, 
and  form  in  effect  the  best  defense  for  their  lord's  apartments, 
which  are  at  the  back  of  the  court-yard^  behind  the  gates,  entre 
cour  etjardin^  as  in  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain,  and  still  to  be 
seen  there  and  elsewhere  in  Europe,  as  relics  of  a  former  age. 

We  soon  emerge  into  an  open  space  in  front  of  the  Tycoon's 
Cemetery,  and  through  it  a  small  river  runs,  fringed  with  fresh 
green  banks  and  a  row  of  trees.  A  narrow  strip  next  to  the 
water,  marking  its  tortuous  course,  has  been  taken  possession 
of  for  cotters'  cabbage-gardens.  Here,  in  the  open  space  above, 
forming  a  sort  of  boulevard,  Matsuri  or  public  fairs  are  often 
held,  and,  in  their  absence,  story-tellers  collect  a  little  audience. 
A  few  noisy  beggars  generally  take  up  their  position  by  the 
wayside,  and,  although  they  receive  gratefully  a  single  cash 
from  their  own  countrymen,  they  never  condescend  to  ask  a 


Chap.  V.J 


JAPANESE  MATSURL 


A   GBOUP   OF    'JOLLY   BEGGARS.' 

foreigner  for  less  than  a  tempo,  equivalent  to  a  hundred  cash ! 
Here  a  party  of  jugglers  may  often  be  seen,  too,  collecting  a 
crowd  from  the  passers-by.  Blondin  and  the  Wizard  of  the 
North  might  both  find  formidable  rivals  here,  for  the  Japanese 
performers  not  only  swallow  portentously  long  swords,  and 
poise  themselves  on  bottles,  but  out  of  their  mouths  come  the 
most  unimaginable  things ;  flying  horses,  swarms  of  flies,  rib- 
bons by  the  mile,  and  paper  shavings  without  end. 

On  crossing  the  bridge,  we  traverse  one  of  the  most  densely 
populated  of  the  commercial  quarters,  through  which,  indeed, 
we  can  only  ride  slowly,  and  in  single  file,  amidst  pedestrians 
and  porters  with  their  loads.  Bullock-cars,  Norimons,  and 
Cangos  are  all  here,  jostling  each  other  in  contending  currents. 
Over  a  gentle  hill,  then  sharp  round  to  the  right,  through  a 
barrier-gate,  we  approach  the  ofiicial  quarter,  in  the  centre  of 
which,  within  three  moats  of  regal  dimensions,  the  Tycoon  him- 
self resides.  But  we  are  not  yet  near  to  it.  We  pursue  our 
way  down  some  rather  steep  steps,  a  Daimio's  residence  on  one 
side,  and  the  wall  and  trees  of  the  Tycoon's  Cemetery,  which 
we  are  skirting,  on  the  other.  As  we  emerge  from  this  defile, 
we  pass  through  a  long  line  of  booths,  where  a  sort  of  daily 
bazar  is  held  for  the  sale  of  gaudily-colored  prints,  maps  (many 
of  them  copies  of  European  charts),story-books,  swords,  tobac- 
co-pouches, and  pipes  for  the  humbler  classes ;  and  in  the  midst 
of  which  a  fortune-teller  may  habitually  be  seen,  seemingly  find- 
ing plenty  of  credulous  listeners  and  the  few  cash  necessary  for 


118  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.V. 

his  daily  wants.  Something  very  like  the  gambling-table  of 
our  own  fairs  may  also  be  seen  in  the  same  spot,  but,  judging 
by  the  stock-in-trade  and  the  juvenile  customers,  the  gambling, 
I  suspect,  is  only  for  sweetmeats.  Their  serious  gambling  is 
reserved  for  tea-houses  and  more  private  haunts,  where  the  law 
may  be  better  defied.  On  festive  occasions,  a  row  of  dingy 
booths,  divided  by  curtains  into  small  compartments,  is  often 
seen,  provided  for  the  lowest  class.  The  Social  Evil  is  here 
a  legalized  institution,  and  nowhere  takes  a  more  revolting 
form. 

In  all  this  there  is  little  new,  perhaps,  except  the  mere  outer 
lineaments  and  costume;  for  human  nature  is  essentially  the 
same  under  all  skies  and  governments.  And  now  we  have  ar- 
rived at  our  first  halt.  Through  the  gateway  may  be  seen  the 
double  flights  of  steps,  the  one  leading  up  to  the  top  of  the 
hill  in  perpendicular  and  unbroken  hne,  the  other  curving  less 
abruptly  upward.  And  although  the  height  is  probably  the 
same,  the  undulating  flight  looks  so  much  less  arduous,  that 
we  instinctively  turn  to  the  right,  willing  to  believe  in  its  gen- 
tler promise. 

Many  pedestrians  —  pilgrims  from  afar,  and  idle  Yeddites 
from  the  neighboring  thoroughfares — are  passing  up  and  down. 
And  among  all  the  strange  and  novel  sights,  few  strike  the 
stranger  as  more  singular  than  a  class  of  penitents  or  disgraced 
ofllicers,  who  move  about  habitually  with  their  heads  buried  in  a 
sort  of  basket  mask,  coni])letely  concealing  the  face.  Lonins, 
outlaws,  and  great  criminals  are  said  to  adopt  this  mode  of 
traveling  when  wishing  to  elude  observation.  Whether  their 
incognito  is  always  respected  by  the  police  I  can  not  say. 
They  recall  the  brothers  of  the  Misericordia  and  begging  peni- 
tents, still  to  be  seen  in  the  towns  of  Italy — relics  of  mediaeval 
times — and  it  is  not  a  little  singular  to  find  their  counterpart 
here. 

Officers  on  horseback,  wearing  the  badge  either  of  the  Ty- 
coon or  their  feudal  chief,  are  passing  to  and  fro,  preceded  by 
one  or  more  footmen  or  grooms,  who  always  accompany  their 
masters,  and  keep  their  pace,  however  rapid.  Some  of  them 
have  marvelous  powers  of  running  in  wind  and  limb.  I  had 
more  than  one  who  would  run  three  or  four  leagues  at  a  stretch 
by  the  side  of  the  horse,  and  without  distress — or  used  to  do 
so  before  they  got  too  fat  and  lazy  in  the  foreigner's  service. 

And  thus  we  gain  the  summit  of  Atango-yama^  so  called 
from  the  god  Atango^  to  whom  the  temple  is  dedicated  here. 
From  no  other  point  can  so  fine  and  commanding  a  view  of 
the  Bay  of  Yeddo,  and  the  city  washed  by  its  waves,  be  ob- 


CtiAP.  v.] 


A  STRIKING  PICTURE. 


119 


UENDICAMT   SINGERS. 


tained.    And  the  picture  that  bursts  suddenly  upon  the  trav- 
eler is  very  striking.     The  hill  fronts  to  the  bay,  but  with  a 
couple  of  miles  of  valley  intervening,  thickly  covered  by  streets 
and  temples.    To  the  left,  and  in  a  noi'theastern  direction,  an- 
other two  miles'  interval  of  plain  is  in  like  manner  filled  up 
with  a  dense  mass  of  houses,  until  a  range  of  hills  is  reached 
on  which  the  Tycoon's  castle  stands.     The  whole  enceinte  of 
the  official  quarter,  within  a  triple  line  of  moats,  is  there ;  not 
only  the  official  residence  of  his  court,  but  the  yarnaskas  of 
the  feudatory  Daimios.     This  range  shuts  out  a  still  more  ex- 
tensive section  of  the  city,  which  stretches  away  into  the  coun- 
try on  the  other  side,  and  may  be  traced  from  the  point  where 
the  spur  of  the  hill  ends  abruptly  toward  the  bay,  winding 
round  the  edge  of  the  coast-line,  and  backward  up  the  valley, 
until  nearly  lost  in  the  distance.     Behind,  yet  another  large 
quarter  of  the  capital  is  hid  foi*m  view  by  a  broken  series  of 
hills  and  dales,  amidst  which  only  here  and  there  a  group  of 
temples  can  be  distinguished ;  a  Daimio's  residence  and  park, 
or  a  few  streets  straggling  irregularly  over  the  crests  and 
down  into  the  broken  hollows.     Seaward  the  eye  looks  out 
upon  the  point  which  conceals  Kanagawa,  and  across  the  line 
of  batteries  a  couple  of  miles  from  shore,  on  to  the  distant  line 
of  coast  and  mountain  some  two  or  three  leagues  off,  which 
form  the  boundary  on  the  opposite  side. 


120  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  V. 

Fair  to  look  on  is  the  capital  of  the  Tycoon  even  in  winter, 
thus  nestled  in  a  broad  valley,  girdled  Avith  green  woods,  and 
crowned  by  undulating  hills,  sloping  with  a  gradual  descent 
to  the  edge  of  a  bay,  into  which  the  Pacific  seeks  in  vain  to 
pour  its  stormy  waters.  Nature  has  barred  the  entrance, 
twenty  miles  below,  Avith  a  breakwater  of  volcanic  islands  and 
verdant  headlands  on  either  side.  And,  to  make  it  more  se- 
cure, she  has  shoaled  the  Avhole  gulf,  so  that  five  miles  from 
the  city  it  is  difiicult  to  find  anchorage  for  a  vessel  drawing 
twenty  feet — the  best  of  all  defenses  against  assault  from  with- 
out, whether  the  elements  or  a  hostile  fleet  be  the  enemy ! 
Nor  are  these  Eastern  potentates  at  all  ignorant  of  the  fact ; 
for  when  a  proposal  was  made  some  time  ago  to  the  King  of 
Siara  to  remove  the  bar  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  leading  to 
Bangkok,  his  Majesty  frankly  replied :  '  If  necessary,  I  would 
pay  you  to  keep  it  there  for  the  defense  of  my  capital!'  The 
government  at  Yeddo,  not  content  with  what  Nature  has  done, 
are  busily  engaged  in  erecting  another  battery,  to  carry  the 
chain  of  fortifications  still  higher  up  the  bay.  They  have  no 
idea,  therefore,  of  being  found  defenseless ;  though  of  all  cities 
situated  on  the  edge  of  navigable  water,  there  are  few  so  un- 
attackable  by  a  naval  force  as  Yeddo.  The  only  conclusion  to 
be  drawn  from  such  preparations  for  defense  is  not  of  good 
augury.  Either  the  Japanese  would  seem  to  have  looked  for- 
ward to  an  attack  as  a  contingency  to  wliich  they  had  un- 
avoidably become  exposed  from  the  moment  the  treaties  were 
signed  with  Foreign  Powers,  whom  it  would  seem,  in  that  case, 
they  little  trust,  and  like  still  less,  or  they  had  themselves  some 
ulterior  policy  which  they  knew  would,  sooner  or  later,  make 
a  collision  inevitable.  If  we  are  to  judge  from  the  evident  ef- 
forts so  perseveringly  made  to  prepare  for  effective  resistance, 
it  is  difl[icult  to  come  to  any  other  conclusion.  Not  only  new 
batteries  were  erected  at  Yeddo  and  the  port  of  Kanagawa 
below,  but  enough  gunpowder  is  habitually  expended  in  mus- 
ket and  artillery  practice,  in  the  course  of  a  few  months,  to 
supply  an  army  during  a  whole  campaign. 

When  I  paid  a  visit  to  Hakodate  some  months  after  my  ar- 
rival, where  there  are  extensive  lead  mines,  which  I  had  been 
over,  I  asked  the  Governor  why  his  government  did  not  allow 
some  of  the  produce  to  be  exported,  suggesting  that  it  might 
be  a  source  of  national  wealth  and  revenue.  And  the  reply 
was  characteristic  in  many  ways.  'We  have  none  to  spare.' 
*None  to  spare!'  I  rejoined  in  surprise;  'what  can  you  use  it 
for?  you  neither  employ  it  in  building  nor  utensils.'  'We 
vant  it  all  for  hall  practiced     They  did  not  choose  to  export 


Chap.  V.J  STREETS  OF  YEDDO.  121 

it,  for  reasons  not  very  easily  explained  ;  but  they  were  not 
Borry,  perhaps,  to  point  to  such  a  use  for  home  consumption. 

It  is  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  city  is  up  and  stir- 
ring. The  shops  are  opened,  and  the  streets  are  filling  with  a 
swarming  population.  The  street  vendor  with  his  ambulatory 
stock,  the  halting  beggar,  officers  on  duty  with  their  retainers 
or  serving-men,  strings  of  coolies  and  porters,  some  dragging 
and  pushing  primitive  carts  laden  with  goods,  all  help  to  swell 


MERCHANDISE   IN  THE   STREETS   OF   YEDDU. 

the  tide  of  human  life ;  shopkeepers  proceeding  with  goods  to 
show  some  purchaser,  according  to  the  inverse  custom  of  the 
Japanese,  where  the  shops  go  to  the  customer,  not  the  cus- 
tomer to  the  shops.  Our  road  takes  us  through  park  and  gar- 
den-bordered streets  and  lanes,  alternating  over  undulating 
hills,  high  enough  occasionally  to  give  glimpses  of  the  open 
country  beyond,  with  rice  ground,  black  and  fallow,  in  the 
lower  levels,  during  part  of  winter.  The  growing  wheat,  of 
brightest  green,  carpets  the  uplands  even  in  March,  however ; 
the  rape-seed,  with  its  golden  flowers,  catches  the  eye,  and  ev- 
ery whei'e  unmistakable  signs  of  skilled  agricultural  labor  and 
wealth  may  be  seen.  In  all  seasons  of  the  year  verdure  and 
beauty  of  no  common  character  clothe  the  hills,  broken  into  a 
hundred  winding  vales  for  many  leagues  around  Yeddo  on  all 
the  land-side ;  for,  unlike  its  population,  the  country  never  lets 
itself  be  seen  naked,  and  scarcely  en  deshabille,  even  when 
stripped  barest  of  its  foliage.  A  few  trees  lose  their  leaves  en- 
tirely, and  stretch  their  naked  arms  to  a  wintry  sky ;  but  in 
close  proximity  will  always  be  seen  some  full-leaved  evergreens, 

F 


122 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  V. 


SHOPKEEPERS   GOING   TO    A   CUSTOMER. 

often  noble  trees,  and,  like  tlie  oak,  of  several  varieties.  The 
cryptomeria,  and  a  larger  family  of  coniferae  than  any  where 
else  in  the  world,  perhaps,  are  here.  The  cypress,  with  its 
sombre  foliage,  contrasts  well  with  the  lighter  hue  and  grace- 
ful branches  of  the  feathery  bamboo  or  the  more  stately  palm. 
All  are  there  to  give  marvelous  beauty  and  variety  to  the  scen- 
ery. A  litile  later  in  the  spring  there  is  a  lavish  display  of 
blossoms,  which  supply  the  place  of  leaves  yet  in  the  bud.  A 
variety  of  flowering  shrubs  never  yet  seen  in  Europe  fill  the 
hedges,  and  sometimes  scent  the  air,  as  well  as  please  the  eye ; 
while  acres  of  orchard  ground  are  covered  by  pear,  and  peach, 
and  plum  blossoms,  the  branches  trellised  horizontally  overhead 
for  a  hundred  square  feet  and  more.  The  orange-tree,  with  its 
fragrant  white  blossoms,  is  not  wanting  to  grace  the  spring 
festival,  while  the  bright  yellow  flower  of  the  melon  covers  the 
poverty  of  the  humblest  thatched  cottage  or  tool-house,  and 
clothes  each  lowly  shed  with  a  robe  of  beauty.  In  the  tea- 
gardens,  scattered  plentifully  round  the  suburbs,  the  peach  and 


Chap.  V.]  INTEMPERANCE.— DRAWBACKS.  123 

the  plum  trees  are  cultivated  chiefly  with  a  view  to  the  beauty 
of  the  blossom,  which  attains  the  size  and  fullness  of  a  rose, 
and  covers  the  tree  in  rich  profusion.  It  is  one  of  the  great 
delights  of  the  Japanese  at  Yeddo,  during  all  April,  to  make 
picnics  to  these  suburban  gardens  and  temples.  Groups  of 
men,  women,  and  children,  by  families,  may  be  seen  trooping 
along  the  shady  roads  on  their  way  to  enjoy  the  beauty  of  the 
opening  spring;  the  rich  in  Norimons,  the  middle  and  lower 
classes  on  foot.  It  is  sad  enough  that  this  Arcadian  scene  is 
so  often  marred  by  intemperance.  Not  content  with  inhaling 
the  freshness  of  the  opening  flowers,  the  men  drink  deep  of 
sdki ;  nor  is  this  practice  altogether  confined,  as  one  would 
fain  have  hoped,  to  the  rougher  sex.  The  latter  make  the 
streets  unsafe,  on  their  return,  especially  to  dogs  and  foreign- 
ers. They  may  be  met  in  bands  of  two  or  three,  with  flushed 
faces;  and  now  and  then,  some  of  the  lower  class  lie  stretched 
across  the  road,  too  drunk  to  go  any  farther.  In  the  vice  of 
intemperance  the  Japanese  have  nothing  to  learn  from  foreign- 
ers ;  that,  at  least,  can  not  be  laid  to  our  charge.  They  are  as 
much  given  to  drunkenness  as  any  of  the  northern  races  of  Eu- 
rope, as  quarrelsome  as  the  worst,  and  far  more  dangerous  in 
their  cups. 

These  are  drawbacks  to  the  beauty  of  the  landscape  and  the 
country  lanes ;  but  it  must  also  be  admitted,  in  candor,  that 
the  same  evils  exist  in  Chnstian  lands,  only,  fortunately,  our 
drunkards  do  not  carry  two  sharp  swords  in  their  belt,  or  feel 
it  a  point  of  honor  to  flesh  them  if  any  convenient  opportunity 
can  be  found.  In  other  respects,  both  country  roads  and  streets 
in  the  city  of  Yeddo  will  bear  advantageous  comparison  with 
the  best  kept  of  either  in  the  West.  No  squalid  misery  or  ac- 
cumulations of  filth  encumber  the  well-cared-for  streets,  if  a 
beggar  here  and  there  be  excepted — a  strange  but  pleasant 
contrast  with  every  other  Asiatic  land  I  have  visited,  and  not 
a  few  European  cities.  The  occasional  passage  of  a  train  of 
porters  carryinij  open  pails  of  liquid  manure  from  the  town  to 
the  fields,  or  a  string  of  horses  laden  with  the  same  precious 
but '  perilous  stuff*,'  may,  indeed,  be  objected  to.  But  the  con- 
ical tubs  on  th<;  horses  are  carefully  covered  over,  and  form, 
indeed,  a  great  improvement  on  the  open  pails.  To  the  unsus- 
pecting traveler  the  turn-out  is  rather  picturesque,  as  may  be 
seen  by  the  following  sketch.  These  are  not  only  the  worst 
assaults  made  either  on  the  olfactory  or  the  visual  organs,  but 
the  sole  assailants,  when  once  the  eye  is  accustomed  to  the 
summer  costume  of  the  lower  orders,  which  with  the  men  is 
limited  to  a  narrow  loin-cloth,  and  the  women  a  petticoat,  sadly 


124 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.       [Chap.V. 


«?^^:: 
^^lii*» 


HORSE    CARRYING    LIQUID    MANURE. 

*  scrimped'  in  the  breadths.  As  I  have  ah-eady  referred  to  this 
ungainly  fashion,  and  would  not  willingly  be  supposed  capable 
of '  setting  down  aught  in  malice,'  or  otherwise  exaggerating 

a  defect,  pictures  will  be  found  in 
these  pages  drawn  by  the  Japan- 
ese themselves,  and  I  think  it  will 
be  confessed  that  their  own  artists 
show  severer  outlines  than  any  pen- 
cil of  mine. 

In  the  valley  between  the  range 
of  hills  and  the  bay,  leagues  of  con- 
tinuous streets  may  be  traversed, 
filled  with  a  busy,  but  not  over- 
woi'ked,  and  seemingly  a  very  con- 
tented and  good-humored  people. 
Children  and  dogs  abound  every 
where.  Until  the  former  can  walk, 
they  are  generally  secured  to  the 
back  of  the  mother,  so  that,  while 
these  pursue  their  daily  occupa- 
tions, their  arms  are  left  free.  Un- 
fortunately (so  it  seems  to  the  look- 
er-on), the  poor  babe's  head  is  left 
equally  free,  the  body  only  being 
THEIR  supported  by  the  sort  of  pocket  in 
which  the  body  is  deposited ;  and 


^^^^^n:^.^^^  ■^- 


HOW  MOTHERS  DISPOSE  OF 
INFANTS. 


Chap.  V.] 


TREATMENT  OF  CHILDREN. 


125 


consequently,  with  every  movement  of  the  parental  trunk,  it 
rolls  from  side  to  side,  swaying  to  and  fro,  as  if  a  dislocation 
of  the  neck  must  inevitably  be  the  result.  Vain  fear  !  The 
mothers  know  better.  Children  have  been  nursed  through 
twenty  generations  in  precisely  the  same  way.  The  babies 
themselves  may  possibly,  by  use,  grow  to  like  it ;  and  certain- 
ly they  rarely  cry,  or  give  other  token  of  dislike.  What  will 
not  use  reconcile  us  to  in  this  life  ?  But  the  mothers  are  not 
the  sole  guardians  of  the  infant  progeny.  It  is  a  very  common 
sight,  in  the  streets  and  shops  of  Yeddo,  to  see  a  little  nude 
Cupid  in  the  arms  of  a  stalwart-looking  father,  nearly  as  naked, 
who  walks  about  with  his  small  burden,  evidently  handling  it 


(Summer  costume.) 


(Winter  coetume.) 


THE  PATEBNAL  NURSE. 


With  all  the  gentleness  and  dexterity  of  a  practiced  hand.  It 
does  not  seem  there  is  any  need  of  a  foundling  hospital,  nor 
has  any  intelligence  reached  me  of  infanticide — save  in  excep- 
tional cases  —  though  so  common  in  China,  especially  in  the 
case  of  female  children.  Abortion  in  the  unmarried  is  said, 
upon  good  authority,  to  be  not  unfrequent,  and  there  are  fe- 
male professors  of  the  art. 

It  is  impossible  to  ride  through  the  streets  of  Yeddo  with- 
out noticing  one  of  the  most  striking  and  constant  features  of 
the  city,  no  matter  what  the  season  of  the  year — large  gaj)8 
where  charred  timbers  and  rubbish  mark  the  scene  of  a  recent 
fire;  and  often,  standing  alone  in  the  midst  of  smouldering 


126  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  V. 

heaps  and  blackened  walls,  are  single  houses,  unscathed  and 
erect.  These  are  fire-proof  houses,  built  of  mud  chiefly,  from 
one  to  two  feet  thick,  and  with  windows  faced  with  iron,  clos- 
ing all  access  to  the  interior  hermetically.  They  certainly  seem 
to  answer  their  purpose  perfectly,  though  simple  enough,  and 
not  of  any  very  expensive  material,  although  there  is  often  a 
sort  of  coquetry  about  them,  in  the  shape  of  lackered  shutters 
and  doors,  as  if  prompted  by  the  overflowing  of  a  grateful 
heart  for  the  security  they  give  in  a  city  where  fires  are  daily 
incidents.  So  natural  does  it  seem  to  lavish  decoration  and 
costly  things  on  that  which  wins  a  place  in  the  aflfections, 
whether  the  object  of  the  love  be  divine  or  '  of  the  earth, 
earthy.'  There  are  no  fire-insurance  offices  in  Japan  any  more 
than  in  China,  and  but  very  imperfect  means  of  extinguishing 
a  conflagration  when  it  takes  place.  Water  is  scarce ;  the 
houses  are  all  built  of  wood  and  lath,  with  a  mere  coating  of 
mud ;  nothing  is  more  common,  therefore,  than  to  see  whole 
streets  leveled  by  their  terrible  enemy  in  a  single  night.  There 
are  fire-bells  and  stations  at  shoi*t  distances,  and  an  elaborate 
and  apparently  well-organized  system  of  fire-brigades,  which 
are  formed  of  a  large  number  of  the  able-bodied  in  every  ward ; 
but  without  a  plentiful  supply  of  water  and  good  engines,  mere 
labor  can  do  little.  The  bells  have  distinct  modes  of  commu- 
nicating information  to  a  great  distance,  not  only  of  the  break- 
ing out  of  a  fire,  but  the  exact  quarter  in  which  it  is  situated, 
and  where  assistance  is  to  be  directed.  As  to  fire  insurance,  I 
once  had  some  conversation  with  the  Ministers  on  the  subject, 
in  which  they  seemed  to  take  great  interest;  but  they  were 
especially  struck  by  the  idea  of  assurances  on  life.  I  think 
their  first  idea  was  that,  by  some  cunning  financial  operation, 
a  life  could  be  indefinitely  prolonged  or  even  brought  back,  as 
they  have  '  long  life  pills  in  gold'  every  where  advertised,  and 
supposed  to  possess  some  power  of  securing  longevity.  As  to 
the  Insurance,  I  am  not  quite  sure  they  are  so  far  wrong  in  fan- 
cying there  may  be  some  occult  connection  between  a  life  an- 
nuity and  longevity.  The  Registrar  General's  returns  of  the 
duration  of  life  in  annuitants,  compared  with  other  classes, 
would  seem  to  prove  it.  But  as  regards  insurance  against  fire, 
that  from  the  first  seemed  to  them  to  be  the  most  hopeless  of 
things !  Here,  as  in  China,  in  addition  to  the  incorrigible  care- 
lessness of  the  natives  living  in  most  combustible  houses,  there 
is  a  considerable  prevalence  of  incendiarism,  witliout  such  ad- 
ditional premium  as  insurance  might  offer,  where  there  is  no 
very  general  trust  in  each  othei-'s  honesty.  Indeed,  in  En- 
gland, grave  doubts  have  been  expressed  by  those  best  inform- 


Chap.v.1  fires.— the  SAMOURAI.  127 

ed  '  wliether  the  practice  of  insurance,  wliich  has  done  so  much 
to  mitigate  tlie  ruin  brought  by  fire,  may  not  have  exercised 
some  baneful  influence  by  increasing  the  motives  for  arson !' 
So  hard  is  it  to  devise  any  good  that  sliall  not  give  rise  to  an 
attendant  evil.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  Japanese  look  for  no  aid 
in  this  direction,  and  take  the  burning  down  of  a  whole  quar- 
ter periodically  much  as  they  do  the  advent  of  an  earthquake 
or  a  typhoon — calamities  beyond  the  power  or  wisdom  of  man 
to  avert.  They  build  their  houses,  accordingly,  witli  the  least 
possible  expense,  as  foredoomed  sooner  or  later  to  be  food  for 
the  flames,  and  when  the  evil  comes  lose  no  time  in  vain  lam- 
entations. They  calculate  that  the  whole  of  this  vast  city  i« 
consumed  in  successive  portions,  to  be  rebuilt  in  every  seven 
years !  It  is  certainly  very  rare  that  a  night  passes  without 
the  fire-bell  of  the  quai'ter  ringing  a  fearful  alarm,  and  rousing 
all  the  neighborhood ;  and  often  during  my  long  residence  I 
have  heard  them  in  different  quarters,  and  seen  the  sky  lurid 
in  two  or  three  directions  at  once. 

A  good-humored  and  contented,  as  well  as  a  happy  race,  the 
Japanese  seem,  whatever  may  be  their  imperfections,  with  the 
one  important  exception  of  the  military,  feudal,  and  official 
caste — classes  I  might  say,  but  they  are  not  easily  separable ; 
indeed,  it  seems  doubtful  whether  there  be  a  civil  class,  since 
all  of  a  certain  rank  are  armed  with  two  formidable  weapons 
projecting  from  their  belt ;  swords,  like  every  thing  else  in  Ja- 
pan, to  our  worse  confusion,  being  double,  without  much  or 
any  obvious  distinction  between  military  and  civil,  between 
Tycoon's,  officers',  and  Daimios'  retainers.  These  are  the 
classes  which  furnish  suitable  types  of  that  extinct  species  of 
the  race  in  Europe,  still  remembered  as  '  Sicash-bucklers^ — 
swaggering,  blustering  bullies ;  many  cowardly  enough  to 
strike  an  enemy  in  the  back,  or  cut  down  an  unarmed  and  in- 
offensive man,  but  also  supplying  nnmbers  every  ready  to  fling 
their  own  lives  away  in  accomplishing  a  revenge,  or  carrying 
out  the  behests  of  their  Chief,  They  are  all  entitled  to  the 
privilege  of  two  swords,  rank  and  file,  and  are  saluted  by  the 
unprivileged  (professional,  mercantile,  and  agricultural)  as 
Sama,  or  lord.  With  a  rolling  straddle  in  his  gait,  reminding 
one  of  Mr.  Kinglake's  graphic  description  of  the  Janissary,  and 
due  to  the  same  cause  —  the  heavy  projecting  blades  at  his 
■waist,  and  the  swaddling-clothes  round  his  body — the  Japanese 
Samoitrai  or  Yacoinn  moves  on  in  a  very  ungainly  fashion, 
the  hilts  of  his  two  swords  at  least  a  foot  in  advance  of  his  per- 
son, very  handy,  to  all  appearance,  for  an  enemy's  grasp.  One 
is  a  heavy  two-handed  weapon,  pointed  and  sharp  as  a  razor. 


128 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  V. 


TYPE  OF  THE  <  DANGEROUS'  CLASSES. — (From  a  Japanese  wood-cut.) 


the  other  short,  like  a  Roman  sword,  and  religiously  kept  in 
the  same  serviceable  state.  In  the  use  of  these  he  is  no  mean 
adept.  He  seldom  requires  a  second  thrust  with  the  shorter 
weapon,  but  strikes  home  at  a  single  thrust,  as  was  fatally 
proved  at  a  later  period ;  while  with  the  longer  weapon  he 
severs  a  limb  at  a  blow.  Such  a  fellow  is  a  man  to  whom  all 
peace-loving  subjects  and  prudent  people  habitually  give  as 
wide  a  berth  as  they  can !  Often  drunk  and  always  insolent, 
he  is  to  be  met  with  in  the  quarters  of  the  town  where  the 
tea-houses  most  abound,  or  returning  about  dusk  from  his 
day's  debauch,  with  a  red  and  bloated  face,  and  not  over  steady 
on  his  legs,  the  terror  of  all  the  unarmed  population  and  street 
dogs.  Happy  for  the  former  when  he  is  content  with  trying 
the  edge  of  a  neAV  sword  on  the  quadrupeds;  and  many  a  poor 
crippled  animal  is  to  be  seen  limping  about  slashed  over  the 
back,  or  with  more  hideous  evidences  of  brutality.  But  at 
other  times  it  is  some  coolie  or  inoffensive  shopkeeper,  who, 
coming  unadvisedly  between  'the  wind  and  his  nobility,'  is 
just  as  mercilessly  cut  down  at  a  blow.  This  does  not  quite 
accord  with  Koempfer's  or  Thunberg's  account  of  the  perfect 
order  and  respect  for  the  law  maintained  throughout  Japan, 
nor  with  the  first  impressions  of  later  writers  as  to  the  uni- 
versal respect  for  the  canine  race ;  but  a  long  residence  in  the 
Capital  revealed  many  things  still  more  opposed  to  the  gener- 
ally received  accounts.    And  that  I  may  not  be  supposed  to 


Chap,  v.]  THE  SAMOURAI.  129 

overcolor  this  part  of  the  picture  drawn  from  life,  the  follow- 
ing extract  from  the  Blue  Book,  taken  from  an  official  letter 
addressed  to  the  Japanese  Ministers  of  Foreign  Affairs  not 
long  after  my  arrival,  may  show : 

'  I  was  returning  on  horseback  at  a  quiet  pace  from  the 
American  Legation,  about  five  o'clock,  merely  followed  by  a 
groom  on  foot  to  take  care  of  my  horse,  and  a  servant  on 
horseback. 

'  I  met  in  the  "  tokaido"  many  officers,  some  in  groups  and 
others  alone,  armed  with  their  two  swords  (about  as  danger- 
ous and  deadly  weapons  as  men  can  well  possess),  and  evident- 
ly intoxicated.  They  were  drunk  in  various  degrees,  but  all — 
the  best  of  them — were  in  a  state  utterly  unfit  to  be  at  large 
in  a  great  thoroughfare,  or  trusted  with  weapons  by  which 
they  might  hi  an  instant  inflict  fatal  wounds  or  grievous  in- 
jury. In  such  circumstances  I  have  frequently  observed  be- 
fore that  they  are  not  only  insolent,  and  as  a  general  rule  of- 
fensive in  their  gestures  and  speech  when  they  meet  foreign- 
ers, but  are  very  prone  to  put  themselves  directly  in  the  path, 
and  either  dispute  the  passage  with  an  air  of  menace,  or  some- 
times even  attempt  to  strike  either  horse  or  rider.  Several  of 
these  disorderly  persons  I  had  passed,  and  as  a  dispute  with  a 
drunken  man  is  always  to  be  avoided  by  one  in  his  sober 
senses,  I  took  no  heed  of  their  demonstrations  of  ill  will,  and 
left  the  passage  free ;  but  when  within  fifty  yards  of  my  own 
door,  having  just  overtaken  Mr.  Heusken,*  one  more  intoxi- 
cated or  more  insolent  than  the  rest,  not  content  with  standing 
in  our  path,  pushed  against  both  horse  and  rider,  and  was 
thrust  aside  by  one  of  the  grooms  who  came  up;  upon  which 
he  instantly  put  his  hand  to  his  sword,  and  fearing  a  defense- 
less servant  might  be  cut  down  by  this  drunken  bravo,  I 
wheeled  my  horse  round,  to  protect  him,  if  necessary,  by  inter- 
posing myself.  But  I  was  imarmed,  with  only  a  rlding-whi]> 
in  my  hand,  and,  undoubtedly,  as  I  should  not  have  stood 
quietly  by  and  seen  a  servant  nnu'dered  who  had  only  done 
his  duty  in  my  defense,  it  is  doubtful  what  might  have  been 
the  issue;  but  another  servant  who  was  on  horseback  had  a 
revolver,  and  hearing  the  officer  vow  immediate  vengeance, 
presented  it,  declaring  he  would  shoot  him  if  he  drew  his 
sword.  But  for  this  both  the  groom  and  myself  might  very 
probably  have  been  wounded,  if  not  murdered  by  this  ruffian, 
maddened  with  drink,  and  armed  to  the  teeth. 

*  The  Secretary  of  tlic  Amcricnn  Logntion,  who  met  Ins  death  some  eight- 
een months  Inter  at  the  hands  of  some  such  ruffians,  who  cut  him  down  in 
the  street,  while  his  Japanese  guard  ran  away. 

Fa 


130  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  V. 

'  Do  your  Excellencies  mean  to  tell  me  that  nothing  can  be 
done,  in  this  capital  of  Japan,  to  prevent  men  of  the  rank  of  of- 
ficers going  about  the  streets  furiously  drunk,  with  two  dead- 
ly weapons  at  their  side?  Is  there  no  law  against  persons 
who  thus  go  about,  to  the  disgrace  of  their  rank,  and  to  the 
manifest  danger  of  every  peaceful  inhabitant — no  punishment 
or  penalty  that  can  be  inflicted  to  deter  them  from  such  con- 
duct?' 

But  for  this  class  of  military  retainers  and  Tycoon's  officials, 
high  and  low,  both  of  which  swarm  in  Yeddo,  it  seems  it 
might  be  one  of  the  pleasantest  places  of  residence  in  the  far 
East.  The  climate  is  superior  to  that  of  any  other  country 
east  of  the  Cape.  The  capital  itself,  though  spreading  over  a 
circuit  of  some  twenty  miles,  with  probably  a  couple  of  millions 
of  inhabitants,  can  boast  what  no  capital  in  Europe  can — the 
most  charming  rides,  beginning  even  in  its  centre,  and  extend- 
ing in  every  direction  over  wooded  hills,  through  smiling  val- 
leys and  sliady  lanes,  fringed  with  evergreens  and  magnificent 
timber.  Even  in  the  city,  especially  along  the  ramparts  of  the 
official  quarter,  and  in  many  roads  and  avenues  leading  thence 
to  the  country,  broad  green  slopes  and  temple  gardens,  or  well- 
timbered  parks  gladden  the  eye,  as  it  is  nowhere  else  gladden- 
ed within  the  circle  of  a  city.  No  sooner  is  a  suburb  gained 
in  any  direction,  than  hedgerows  appear  which  only  England 
can  rival,  either  for  beauty  or  neatness ;  while  over  all  an  East- 
ern sun,  through  the  greater  ])art  of  the  year,  throws  a  flood 
of  light  from  an  unclouded  sky,  making  the  deep  shadow  of 
the  overarcliing  trees  doubly  grateful  with  its  ever-varying 
pictures  of  tracery,  both  above  and  below.  Such  is  Yeddo  and 
its  environs  in  the  long  summer  time,  and  far  into  a  late  au- 
tumn. Even  through  the  early  winter  months  imtil  about  the 
middle  of  February  this  description  holds  good.  Then  the 
weather  breaks  with  rain  and  snow,  and  easterly  winds  swell- 
ing into  gales  of  two  or  three  days'  duration  succeed,  full  of 
danger  to  ships  on  the  rock-bound  coast  and  stormy  seas. 

Yeddo  must  have  been  looking  its  best  and  gayest  when  its 
temple  and  castle-crowned  hills  first  greeted  the  eyes  of  Lord 
Elgin  and  his  suite.  And  so  those  who  accompanied  him  have 
painted  it  for  us  in  its  gala  dress,  all  nature  contributing  to 
make  it  bright.  The  ministers  of  the  dead  Tycoon  (for  dead 
he  was  while  the  treaty  was  being  negotiated),  too  happy  to 
terminate  a  negotiation  which  could  alone  rid  them  of  their 
self-invited  and  most  unwelcome  guests,  who  had  arrived  in 
the  midst  of  a  palace  revolution, '  smiled  and  smiled'  and '  made 
things  pleasant'  as  they  best  could.    But  it  may  well  have  been 


Chap,  v.]  WINTER  AT  YEDDO.  I33 

doubted,  even  then,  whether  any  treaty  with  Japan  could  pos- 
sibly be  devised  to  establish  a  foreign  trade  and  diplomatic 
relations  that  would  not  be  utterly  distasteful  to  the  Ruling 
classes. 

I  have  given  a  glimpse  of  Yeddo  as  it  may  be  seen  on  a 
bright  summer  day ;  but  it  is  not  all  sunshine  in  the  capital  of 
the  Tycoon.  Tempests  from  above,  and  volcanic  throes  from 
below,  from  time  to  time  give  it  a  very  different  aspect.  From 
political  storms  and  convulsions  it  would  appear  they  have 
been  more  happily  exempt,  for  the  last  two  centuries,  than  any 
other  capital  in  modern  times ;  until  events  soon  to  be  de- 
scribed awoke  the  Yeddo  citizens  from  their  dream  of  char- 
tered security,  and  inspired  some  anxious  doubts  as  to  what 
might  follow,  of  change  or  revolution,  despite  the  most  perfect 
and  best  warranted  of  State  machines !  There  is  a  winter  also 
in  Japan,  though  less  severe  in  the  capital  than  in  the  north, 
and  opposite  coast  of  China — still  a  very  unmistakable  winter, 
with  ice  and  snow ;  while  at  Hakodate,  in  the  northernmost  isl- 
and of  the  group,  it  is  almost  Siberian,  with  long-continued  and 
heavy  falls  of  snow,  the  thermometer  standing  many  degrees 
below  zero.  The  country  at  Yeddo  seldom,  indeed,  as  I  have 
said,  puts  on  a  winter  garb.  It  is  in  the  streets  the  principal 
change  occurs ;  for  as  nature  throws  off  her  mantle,  her  chil- 
dren put  on  theirs ;  and  the  Japanese  heap  wadded  gown  on 
gown,  until  they  get  the  required  warmth,  with  a  notable  in- 
crease of  bulk.  A  chafing-dish  with  a  handful  of  charcoal,  let 
into  the  floor  (like  the  Spanish  brasero),  being  the  only  fire 
they  use  in  their  houses  for  purposes  of  warmth,  they  naturally 
resort  to  clothing.  The  men  in  the  streets  seem,  above  all, 
careful  of  the  ends  of  their  noses,  and  on  a  cold  day  two  thirds 
of  the  population  are  to  be  seen  with  all  the  lower  part  of  their 
faces  concealed  by  the  folds  of  a  blue  cotton  muffler  tied  round 
the  head,  from  under  which  nothing  but  a  pair  of  eyes  can  be 
recognized.  And  when  the  wearer  carries  a  couple  of  deadly 
weapons  at  his  waist,  and  advances  with  a  menacmg  gait,  it  is 
difficult  to  conceive  a  more  assassin-like  figure,  immediately 
suggesting  a  masked  bravo,  whom  it  would  be  unpleasant  to 
meet  in  a  lo*^e  place  on  a  dark  night.  And,  in  effect,  murders 
and  highway  robberies  appear  to  be  frequent.  With  the  fronts 
of  the  houses  and  shops  less  open  to  the  street  than  when  the 
sun  sheds  light  and  heat  into  their  farthest  corners,  and  such 
sinister-looking  figures  every  where  meeting  the  eye,  the  whole 
city  puts  on  something  of  the  aspect  of  a  beleaguered  town, 

feopied  only  by  soldiers  or  armed  men  bent  on  desperate  work, 
f  tub  be  the  impression  conveyed  by  the  narrow  streets  and 


134 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  V. 


THE    SAMOURAI. 

crowded  thoroughfares  of  the  commercial  quarters,  it  is  still 
farther  suggested  on  emerging  from  these  into  the  Daimios' 
quarter,  circling  between  broad  moats  round  the  Tycoon's  cas- 
tle. Here  are  fine  open  spaces,  great  causeways  or  glacis,  not 
less  than  fifty  feet  in  width,  lined  on  one  side  with  tlie  outer 
buildings  and  great,  massive-looking  gateways  of  the  Daimios' 
residences,  and  those  of  the  high  officers  in  the  employment  of 
the  government ;  and  on  the  other  by  the  large,  deep  moats, 
fed  by  tributary  rivers,  in  which,  at  this  season  of  the  year, 
thousands  of  wild -fowl  live  undistui'bed.  It  being  death  to 
molest  or  shoot  them,  they  are  so  secure  that  it  is  almost  im- 
possible to  get  them  up ;  but  if  for  a  moment  they  are  startled, 
they  rise  like  a  dark  cloud  from  the  water,  in  immense  num- 
bers. In  the  more  shallow  parts,  the  sacred  ibis  of  Egypt  sol- 
emnly picks  his  way  and  his  food,  enjoying,  as  an  emblem  of 
happiness  and  longevity  with  the  Japanese,  quite  as  much  sanc- 
tity as  in  the  land  of  the  Pliaraohs.  With  the  agriculturists, 
the  whole  race  of  storks,  cranes,  and  paddy -birds,  of  which 
there  are  great  numbers,  are  in  much  favor  (partly,  no  doubt, 
for  their  useful  qualities) ;  and  they  may  often  be  seen  in  twos 


Chak  V.J  THE  RAMPAHTS.  135 

and  threes  following  the  plow,  with  the  greatest  gravity,  close 
at  the  heels  of  the  peasant,  picking  the  worms  out  of  the  fresh 
upturned  earth,  and  making  their  morning  meal,  equally  to  his 
advantage  and  their  own. 

The  moats,  like  the  causeways  which  serve  as  glacis,  are 
wide,  with  sloping  banks  descending  to  the  water's  edge,  some 
fifty  feet  or  more  from  the  level  of  the  road.  These  are  in 
some  ])laces  massive  walls,  and  in  others  faced  with  turf;  al- 
ways beautifully  kept,  smooth  as  any  gentleman's  lawn  in  En- 
gland, and  always  green,  surmounted  at  the  top  by  a  rami)art 
wall.  Where  walls  and  bastions  of  stone  exist,  these  are  com- 
posed of  blocks  of  granite,  consisting  of  polygons  laid  on  each 
other  in  irregular  lines  without  mortar,  the  better  to  meet  the 
shocks  of  continual  eaithquakes,  by  allowing  a  certain  latitude 
of  motion  without  fracture  or  serious  displacement.  From 
many  of  these  steep  green  banks  fine  cypresses  and  cedars  rise 
up  perpendicularly  nearly  to  the  level  of  the  parapets,  or  over- 
hang the  water  below ;  an  innovation  perhaps  on  our  ideas  of 
defensive  works  detrimental  to  their  security,  but  singularly 
conducive  to  their  beauty.  Strong,  and  almost  impregnable  as 
these  triple  lines  of  bastion,  rampart,  and  moat  appear  on  the 
first  aspect,  they  have  evidently  been  constructed  in  ignorance 
of  some  of  the  first  principles  of  the  engineer's  art  as  regards 
military  defense  against  artillery.  But,  curious  to  say,  al- 
though so  evidently  built  at  a  vast  expense  for  defense,  not  a 
single  piece  of  ordnance  is  any  where  to  be  seen  within  the  of- 
ficial quarter.  Each  moat  is  crossed  at  three  or  four  points  in 
the  circle  by  solidly  constructed  timber  bridges,  flanked  by 
high  massive  gateways  and  bastions,  built  with  Cyclopean 
blocks  of  granite.  The  gates  are  strong,  copper  sheathed  and 
iron  clamped ;  but  nothing  in  the  shape  of  a  drawbridge  exists. 

As  the  whole  of  this  quarter  of  the  city  occupies  the  crown 
of  a  range  of  hills  projecting  across  the  valley,  and  dividing  it 
in  two,  covering  an  area  of  several  miles  in  circumference,  it 
offers  many  commanding  sites  and  some  wide  sweeps  of  land- 
scape worthy  of  the  pencil  of  a  Roberts  or  aStanfield,if  Japan 
could  boast  such  talented  sons.  The  broad  causeway  in  curv- 
ing lines,  bounded  on  one  side  by  the  moat,  with  green  banks 
shelving  steeply  down  fiom  the  upper  level, and  on  the  other  by 
Daimios'  residences — Yamaskas,  with  their  gateways  of  quaint 
and  elaborate  architecture — form  the  natural  foreground.  To 
fill  up  the  picture,  giving  life  and  movement  to  the  scene, 
groups  of  horsemen,  with  pedestrians  intermingled,  are  never 
wanting.  Sometimes  an  imposing  cortege  will  be  seen  emerg- 
ing from  a  gateway,  with  standards  and  state  umbrellas,  nori- 


136  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.        tCHAP.V. 

mons  and  led  horses,  easily  recognized  as  the  escort  of  a  Da- 
imio,  proceeding  to  the  palace  to  pay  his  obligatory  visit  to  the 
Tycoon  ;  or  some  more  modest  train,  forming  the  suite  of  an 
officer  attached  either  to  the  Tycoon  or  a  great  feudatory 
prince,  in  his  costume  of  ceremony,  called  Kamisinia^  with  its 
projecting  wings  of  gauze,  is  proceeding  to  his  destination, 
gravely  and  solemnly,  as  is  the  wont  of  his  order.  He  is 
perched  on  the  top  of  a  break-neck  saddle,  his  bridle  of  silken 
folds  is  held  one  in  each  hand,  and  wide  apart — by  it,  indeed, 
he  seems  to  hold  on — sawing  at  a  small  snaffle,  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  his  horse's  mouth.  A  groom  walks  at  his  stirrup  on 
each  side,  to  defend  him  if  attacked,  or  assist  him  to  keep  his 
seat  if  he  should  be  in  danger  of  falling,  while  two  more  lead 
the  impetuous  animal !  More  rarely  some  official  sent  on  ur- 
gent business  presses  his  steed  into  a  sort  of  shambling  gal- 


OFFICER    ON    URGENT   DUTY. 


lop,  to  the  peril  of  both  man  and  beast,  to  all  appearance,  both 
being  equally  unaccustomed  to  such  a  pace.  It  is  vulgar  and 
loxo  to  ride  fast  in  Japan,  consequently  a  furious  pace  in  a  Jap- 
anese means  either  drunkenness  or  mischief,  generally  both, 
or  unquestionable  urgency  on  the  Tycoon's  business.  Farther 
on,  scattered  here  and  there  as  if  designed  to  fill  up  the  picture, 
are  divers  groups  of  Yeddites,  citizen  and  peasant,  with  a  cer- 
tain proportion  of  valetaille  and  feudal  retainers  of  all  ranks. 
These  give  interest  to  a  foreground  of  grand  proportions 
and  bold  outline ;  while  beyond,  and  on  a  much  lower  level, 
glimpses  of  the  city  appeal*,  stretching  away  to  the  blue  water* 


Chap,  v.]        OBJECTS  OF  TAIKOSAMA.  13  V 

of  the  bay,  covered  with  fantastically-rigged  boats  and  junks. 
No  capital  in  Europe  presents  so  many  striking  features  of  a 
type  altogether  peculiar ;  nor,  upon  the  whole,  can  any  boast  of 
80  much  beauty  in  the  site  and  surrounding  country,  and  this 
for  leagues  in  every  direction.  And  probably  no  other  capital 
would  prove  so  difficult  to  occupy  by  an  enemy,  unless  his  army 
rivaled  the  invading  force  of  Xerxes  in  number.  The  official 
quarter  alone,  with  the  Tycoon's  castle  in  the  centre,  which  is 
the  key  of  the  whole  position,  could  not  be  occupied  with  safety, 
or  be  defended,  except  by  a  very  large  force,  so  wide  is  the  area 
it  covers.  But  no  European  general  would  think  of  occupying 
80  vast  a  city.  One  or  two  strong  positions  might  be  seized, 
from  which  the  greater  part  could  be  commanded  or  destroyed 
without  difficulty,  although  the  whole  could  not  be  held  with 
a  hostile  population.  Probably  the  Japanese  may  themselves 
have  come  to  this  conclusion  also,  and  thus  thought  they  might 
dispense  with  armed  batteries  round  their  ramparts.  This  cap- 
itol  of  the  Tycoon's  metropolitan  city  (for  Yeddo  is  not,  prop- 
erly speaking,  the  capital  of  Japan,  but  Miaco,  which  is  the 
residence  of  the  Mikado,  the  hereditary  and  only  recognized 
titular  sovereign),  in  which  large  bodies  of  armed  retainers  and 
Tycoon's  officers  have  their  quarters,  seems,  indeed,  rather  for 
a  show  of  strength  and  power  than  for  actual  defense,  except, 
perhaps,  in  case  of  civil  feuds  and  insurrection.  Their  history 
seems  to  say  these  have  never  broken  out  since  the  civil  wars, 
which  followed  for  the  succession  to  the  '  7  ycoowa^,' created 
by  the  strong  arm  and  determined  will  of  Taiko-sama.  He  it 
was  who  reduced  the  boldest  to  subjection,  and  broke  the 
power  of  many  of  the  independent  princes.  To  exterminate 
Christianity  and  humble  the  great  nobles  seem  to  have  been 
the  two  main  objects  he  had  in  view,  for  in  both  he  saw  dan- 
gerous enemies  to  the  Sovereign  power,  by  whomsoever  wield- 
ed. He  accomplished  the  first  of  these  in  his  lifetime,  but 
could  only  pave  the  way  for  the  last,  and,  like  other  successful 
soldiers  and  conquerors  who  have  sought  to  found  a  dynasty, 
and  devoted  their  energies  to  secure  it  from  all  future  dangers, 
he  worked  for  posterity,  not,  as  he  fondly  hoped,  for  his  own 
offspring.  The  present  dynasty  acknowledges  no  drop  of  his 
blood.  Not  even  his  own  son,  whom  he  left  an  infant  to  the 
guardianship  of  his  uncle,  ever  held  the  reins  of  power,  but  per- 
ished in  the  attempt  to  assert  his  right  when  arrived  at  man's 
estate.  In  this  same  effort  many  Christian  converts  and  their 
Foreign  teachers  joined,  and  the  failure  of  an  appeal  to  arms 
was  the  destruction  of  both.  And  so  died  out  of  the  land  the 
Christianity  of  a  century's  growth  at  Simabara. 


138  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  VI. 

This  train  of  thouglit  has  led  us  far  from  Yeddo  and  all  it 
contains  of  promise  for  the  present,  but  not  before  our  journey 
through  its  rural  lanes  and  populous  streets  had  come  to  a  nat- 
ural close.  The  stereoscopic  slides  are  exhausted,  and  I  put 
away  the  box,  not  without  hope  that  the  purpose  of  the  hour 
has  been  answered,  and  some  true  idea  given,  both  of  the  capi- 
tal of  the  Tycoon  and  its  population,  in  many  of  their  leading 
characteristics. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

First  Lessons  in  Japanese  Diplomacy. 

As  some  days  were  required  for  carpenters  and  masons  to 
convert  the  temple  rooms  into  a  habitable  residence  for  Euro- 
peans, with  far  other  wants  than  the  Spartan  habits  of  the  Jap- 
anese suggest,  I  turned  the  delay  to  account  by  making  arrange- 
ments for  the  opening  of  Kanagawa  on  the  day  fixed  by  treaty, 
July  1, 1859.  This  is  the  shipping  port  of  Yeddo,  lying  some 
sixteen  miles  farther  down  the  bay  on  the  western  side.  There 
is  a  small  town  here,  built  along  the  northern  shore  of  an  inner 
bay,  nearly  a  mile  and  a  half  in  depth,  and  more  than  that  across 
from  point  to  point.  It  is  situated  on  the  Tocado,  the  imperial 
high  road,  leading,  as  already  explained,  from  all  the  southern 
provinces  to  the  capital,  along  which  the  princes  and  Daimios 
whose  territories  lie  southward  have  to  pass  in  their  compul- 
sory journeys  to  and  fro,  to  take  up  their  oiRcial  residence  un- 
der the  eyes  of  the  Tycoon's  Government  for  six  months  in  the 
year. 

Whether  the  compulsory  nature  of  the  journey  sours  the 
temper  of  these  Magnates  of  the  land,  and  renders  it  unpleasant 
to  have  any  dealings  with  them,  on  such  occasions  especially,  or 
whether  a  known  hostility  to  foreigners  existed  in  the  breasts  of 
the  Daimios,  which  made  it  inexpedient,  if  not  dangerous,  that 
the  two  should  meet,  might  be  a  question  ;  but  it  soon  appeared 
that  the  Japanese  Government  had  formed  a  very  decided  reso- 
lution to  locate  the  foreigners,  not  at  Kanagawa,  where  the 
treaty  stipulated,  but  on  the  opposite  point  of  the  bay,  at  a  place 
called  Yokohama,  where  a  fishing  village  existed,  in  the  midst 
of  a  marsh,  and  far  away  from  the  direct  line  of  traflic  through 
the  country. 

On  the  first  view,  there  seemed  many  and  grave  objections 
to  this  arbitrary  transfer  of  locality ;  and  perhaps  I  felt  all  the 


Chap.  VI.]  SITE  FOR  A  SETTLEMENT.  139 

less  disposed  to  give  in  to  such  an  arrangement,  from  the  evi- 
dence that  the  government  must  have  determined  the  location 
should  be  where  they  had  elected,  and  nowhere  else.  They 
had  gone  to  vast  expense  in  building  a  causeway  across  the 
lagunes  and  marshy  ground  for  nearly  two  miles,  to  shorten 
the  distance,  and  afford  a  certain  and  direct  means  of  commu- 
nication with  the  high  road  to  Kanagawa.  I  found  solid 
granite  piers  and  landing-places  had  already  been  built ;  and 
an  extemporized  town  for  Japanese  traders,  with  a  number  of 
small  houses  and  go-downs  for  the  foreign  merchants,  were  all 
prepared,  together  with  a  large  range  of  official  quarters,  in 
which  a  custom-house  was  already  established. 

All  these  tangible  evidences  of  a  foregone  conclusion,  and  a 
determination  to  allow  no  voice  in  the  matter  to  the  Foreign 
Representatives,  naturally  excited  suspicion  as  to  the  motives 
for  such  a  course,  and  the  wisdom  of  concurrence.  The  alle- 
gation of  the  officials  was,  that  Mr.  Harris,  the  American  Min- 
ister, when  at  Yeddo  the  previous  year,  had  seen  the  locality 
and  accepted  it.  Of  course  this  was  open  to  the  obvious  re- 
ply that  Mr.  Harris  could  not  possibly  have  accepted  any  lo- 
cation other  than  the  treaty  stipulated,  except  for  his  own 
Government  or  countrymen,  and  had  no  power  or  authority 
to  decide  for  his  colleagues.  Fortunately,  at  this  moment  Mr. 
Harris  arrived  in  person  from  Simoda,  and  on  being  referred 
to,  he  not  only  denied  having  given  any  assent,  but  assured  me 
he  had  strongly  remonstrated  against  the  proposed  site,  as  one 
to  which  serious  objections  attached. 

Nevertheless,  there  was  the  locality,  and  a  site  prepared  at 
an  enormous  expenditure  of  labor  and  money.  Not  only  this, 
but  there  was  a  certainty  of  a  long  struggle  and  great  delay 
before  any  other  site  could  be  obtained ;  and  several  ships 
were  already  in  harbor  with  pioneers  of  trade  on  board,  from 
Nagasaki  and  China,  eager  to  try  the  new  port,  and,  of  course, 
clamorous  for  instant  accommodation  and  facilities.  This  was 
an  embarrassing  position  for  all  parties.  It  was  impossible, 
against  our  conviction  of  what  was  really  best  for  the  ]ierma- 
nent  and  national  interests  at  stake,  to  sanction  the  ofl"-hand 
proceedings  of  the  Japanese  Government ;  and  yet  it  was  easy 
to  foresee  that,  after  having  gone  so  far,  they  would  in  all  prob- 
ability not  recede,  but  find  some  means  of  carrying  their  point 
sooner  or  later. 

Here  was  the  first  difficulty  in  our  relations,  and  how  it  was 
best  to  be  met  was  not  easily  determined.  Mr.  Harris  and  I 
both  saw,  in  this  set  pui*pose  of  the  Japanese  to  locate  the  for- 
eign trade  there  and  nowhere  else,  a  design  to  make  another 


140  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  VI. 

Deciraa  —  to  place  the  merchants  where  they  could  be  most 
easily  and  completely  isolated,  their  trade  watched  and  con- 
t)-olled,  and  in  such  a  situation,  in  short,  as  should  enable  the 
Japanese  officials  to  exercise  a  restrictive  power  upon  all  trade. 
Every  Japanese  approaching  the  settlement  must  either  pass 
along  two  miles  of  exposed  causeway,  with  a  gate  at  each  end, 
or  cross  the  bay,  the  edge  of  which  was  already  studded  with 
watch-houses.  It  naturally  followed  that,  not  only  had  the 
officials  the  power  of  effectually  preventing  any  communica- 
tion with  the  foreigner,  except  such  as  they  might  choose  to 
allow,  and  under  such  conditions  as  the  Government  might  see 
fit  secretly  to  impose,  but  without  appearing  to  move  in  the 
matter,  they  could  exercise  any  amount  of  interference  and 
control  over  the  ti'ade,  since  not  an  ounce  of  silk  or  a  chest  of 
tea  could  find  its  way  to  the  foreign  merchant  thus  located, 
until  sanctioned,  nor  a  bale  of  his  own  goods  pass  out  of  such 
a  cleverly  contrived  trap  for  traders. 

That  this,  among  other  objects,  was  distinctly  contemplated, 
it  sufficed  to  know  what  had  been  the  policy  of  the  Japanese 
at  Nagasaki  for  the  previous  two  centuries,  and  to  see  the  dis- 
position of  the  ground,  with  the  works  so  energetically  accom- 
plished in  anticipation.  They  had,  too  evidently,  one  stereo- 
typed idea  as  to  foreigners  and  foreign  trade,  and  they  had 
proceeded  with  the  instinct  and  perseverance  of  beavers  to 
work  out  the  conception,  damming  up  all  but  the  one  entrance 
or  exit,  which  enabled  them  to  keep  vigilant  watch  and  ward 
on  all  that  might  go  in  or  come  out. 

This  was  not  an  auspicious  opening  to  free  trade  under  the 
treaties ;  and  both  the  American  Minister  and  myself  determ- 
ined vigorously  to  resist  this  attempt  to  place  the  merchants 
in  a  disadvantageous  position,  and  perpetuate  a  state  of  things 
which  it  was  the  great  object  of  the  treaties  to  put  an  end  to 
forever.  Either,  indeed,  such  a  policy  must  be  reversed,  or 
the  treaties  would  become  worthless  as  waste  paper.  Due  no- 
tice was  accordingly  given  by  both  of  us  to  our  respective 
countrymen,  that  we  should  resist  this  attempt  to  force  them 
into  this  Decima-like  settlement  so  astutely  prepared,  and  rec- 
ommended some  patience  and  self-denial  while  the  battle  was 
being  fought  in  their  interest  and  that  of  all  trade  at  the  port. 
I  confess  I  felt  any  thing  but  sanguine  as  to  the  result.  Past 
experience  led  me  to  conclude  there  was  a  losing  fight  before 
us,  though  one  we  could  not  consistently  or  conscientiously  de- 
cline. 

How  vain  it  is,  by  any  thing  short  of  a  law  with  specific 
penalties,  to  induce  the  rough  and  ready  pioneers  of  commerce, 


Chap.  VI.]  EXTENSION  OF  SITE.  141 

who  first  rush  into  a  new  port  in  the  East,  to  listen  either  to 
advice  or  injunction,  if  it  run  counter  to  their  immediate  con- 
venience or  temporary  interest,  I  had  not  now  to  learn.  Nev- 
ertheless, it  was  necessary,  in  the  discharge  of  a  public  duty,  to 
make  the  attempt.  Above  all,  it  was  needful  to  protect  those 
who  might  come  after  them,  so  far  as  this  might  be  possible,  and 
the  permanent  interests  of  trade  in  Japan,  from  what  threatened 
to  prove  a  serious  detriment  to  both,  and  might  at  any  moment 
be  made,  in  Japanese  hands,  the  destruction  of  the  latter.  We 
had  scarcely  returned  to  Yeddo  when  I  heard  that  first  one 
mercantile  agent,  and  then  another,  had  taken  up  their  quarters 
at  Yokohama,  some  partly  driven  by  distress  for  lodging,  of 
course  refused  elsewhere,  and  pressed  upon  them  with  the  ut- 
most benevolence  in  the  forbidden  location  by  the  Japanese. 
These  had  their  own  game  to  play,  and  were  of  course  not  at 
all  slow  to  begin,  by  setting  the  merchants  and  their  Repre- 
sentatives at  cross  purposes  and  in  unseemly  antagonism. 

From  that  time  it  was  manifestly  a  losing  fight  against  all 
odds.  We  were  in  fact,  to  all  appearance,  insisting  upon  a 
right  in  behalf  of  our  merchants  which  they  themselves,  the 
chief  parties  interested,  repudiated  as  much  as  the  Japanese 
Government !  The  record  of  such  past  struggles  against  ad- 
verse elements  is  not  likely  to  be  read  with  much  interest  now, 
and  therefore  I  will  merely  state  the  result.  The  consuls  were 
placed  in  Kanagawa^  and  after  some  weeks  of  negotiation 
(during  which  the  Japanese  Government  insisted  that  Yoko- 
hama was  in  fact  Kanagawa,  that  name  including  the  whole 
district ;  and  therefore  that  it  was  not  contrary  to,  but  in  strict 
accordance  with  treaty,  to  locate  the  foreign  settlement  where 
it  was)  they  gave  way,  and  a  site  was  obtained  on  the  edge  of 
the  bay  outside  Kanagawa,  and  nearer  to  Yeddo  by  a  league. 
Merchants  and  Consuls  both  might  have  as  much  land  as  they 
desired  or  chose  to  pay  for,  buying  out  the  proprietors  where 
any  houses  actually  existed.  But  in  the  interval  more  pioneers 
of  foreign  trade  had  arrived,  of  many  nationalities,  and  some 
with  very  few  scruples.  More  accommodation  had  been  af- 
forded them  (by  the  most  obliging  of  governments),  despite 
*the  unrelenting  hostility  and  perversity  of  the  Foreign  Rep- 
resentatives at  Yeddo,'  and  trade  once  located  makes  a  chan- 
nel, from  which  no  government  influence  (unless  it  be  such  as 
the  Japanese  employ)  can  easily  turn  it.  Trade,  where  it  once 
strikes  root,  is  far  more  difiicult  to  transplant  than  trees,  even 
were  it  not  otherwise  contrary  to  the  whole  spirit  of  our  legis- 
lation to  force  its  growth  in  any  particular  locality  or  direc- 
tion.   Having,  therefore,  secured  a  free  choice,  and,  in  some  im- 


142  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  VI. 

portant  respects  at  least,  if  not  in  all,  a  more  eligible  site,  the 
rest  was  letl  to  the  merchants  themselves,  without  official  in- 
tervention or  obstacle,  to  be  decided  by  them  and  the  course 
of  events.  A  good  deal  of  ill  blood  was  created  at  the  time, 
to  judge  by  the  amount  of  anonymous  abuse  that  found  its 
way  into  the  local  press  in  China ;  but  a  year  had  not  passed 
before  all  the  available  land  and  houses  had  been  got  into  the 
large  and  tenacious  grasp  of  the  first  comers,  who  had  money 
at  command ;  and  as  new  arrivals  came,  a  wild  cry  of  despair 
and  injured  prospects  arose,  'there  was  no  more  land  to  be 
obtained !'     The  first  on  the  ground  had  followed 

The  good  old  plan, 
That  all  should  take  who  have  the  power, 
And  all  should  keep  who  can  ; 

or,  at  least,  only  ^^ar^  with  it  at  a  price  which  would  bring 
enormous  returns,  and  impose  very  onerous  conditions  on  the 
later  purchasers.     I  thought  the  time  had  then  arrived  to  in- 
tervene with  effect,  and  with  advantage  to  all,  in  order  not  only 
to  secure  a  legal  tender  and  evoke  some  order  out  of  existing 
confusion,  but  procure  more  land,  otherwise  wholly  unattain- 
able by  any  efforts  of  the  merchants.     For  the  Japanese,  hav- 
ing got  them  there  permanently  located,  it  was  not  at  all  in 
their  project,  Avhen  Kanagawa  was  secured  from  their  pres- 
ence, to  give  them  any  larger  facilities  for  trade.     The  ques- 
tion as  to  choice  of  site  having  to  all  appearance  been  prac- 
tically settled,  wisely  or  otherwise,  by  the  merchants  them- 
selves, who  were  on  the  spot,  I  entered  into  communication 
with  the  Japanese  Government  on  the  subject.     After  point- 
ing out  the  efforts  they  had  successfully  made,  contrary  to  my 
wish  and  that  of  the  other  Foreign  Representatives,  to  locate 
foreigners  on  the  Yokohama  site,  lavishly  placing  at  the  dis- 
posal ot'  the  Jirst  comers,  Avithout  regard  to  the  just  rights  of 
those  who  might  follow,  or  the  permanent  ir.tcrests  of  the  port, 
all  the  land  and  house  accommodation   available,  avoiding, 
at  the  same  time,  every  vestige  of  legal  tenure,  it  was  neces- 
sary this  state  of  confusion  and  unequal  appropriation  of  land 
should  cease.     In  view  of  their  own  antecedent  course,  I  in- 
sisted upon  their  obligation  immediately  to  extend  the  site  to 
the  foot  of  the  bluff  forming  the  front  of  the  bay,  giving  a  mile 
more  of  water  frontage  and  a  proportionate  depth,  which  lat- 
ter might  afterward  be  extended  ad  libitum,  according  to  the 
progress  of  trade,  and  the  legitimate  wants  of  the  merchants. 
The  new  site,  it  was  farther  stipulated,  should  be  placed  at 
the  disposal  of  the  Representatives  of  the  five  Treaty  Powers, 
to  be  allotted  on  some  equitable  principle,  in  view  of  the  jores- 


Chap.  VI.]  THE  NEW  SEl^TLEMENT.  143 

ent  and  future  wants  of  foreigners,  who  miglit  desire  to  settle 
at  this  port  for  trade.  This  done,  I  promised  that  the  hold- 
ings in  the  old  site  should  be  ascertained  and  regularized,  and, 
a  legal  title  being  given  by  competent  Japanese  authority  and 
the  rental  fixed,  payment  of  arrears  should  follow..  And  thus, 
at  the  end  of  two  years  only,  was  it  possible  to  correct  the 
evils  induced  by  the  first  irregular  proceedings,  or  protect  the 
original  squatters  from  the  effects  of  their  own  acts,  in  support 
of  which  they  had  invested  large  sums  on  land,  and  without 
obtaining  a  shadow  of  legal  title. 

The  Consul,  at  a  much  later  period,  convened  a  public  meet- 
ing for  the  purpose  of  hearing  any  grievances  the  merchants 
might  have  against  either  the  Japanese  or  their  own  authori- 
ties, and  gave  a  very  plain  resume  of  the  whole  subject  in  the 
following  extract  from  his  speech,  reviewing  the  several  com- 
plaints, and  challenging  denial  or  dissent  if  his  facts  were  in- 
correct. But  no  single  word  was  offered  either  in  the  way 
of  refutation  or  comment. 

'  We  come  now  to  the  occupation  of  land,  in  which  the  com- 
mittee speak  of  "  unaccountable"  and,  what  has  appeared  to 
many,  "vexatious"  delays  in  obtaining  building  sites.  Yet 
nothing  admits  of  more  easy  explanation.  I  need  hardly  re- 
mind you  that  when  the  port  was  first  opened  it  was  a  ques- 
tion between  the  Japanese  authorities  and  the  Foreign  Repre- 
sentatives which  side  of  the  bay  offered  the  most  eligible  site 
for  the  permanent  objects  of  trade.  The  British  and  Ameri- 
can Ministers  both  saw  cogent  reasons  for  preferring  Kanaga- 
•wa,  in  a  permanent  point  of  view  ;  while  the  majority  of  mer- 
chants, arriving  by  ones  and  twos,  seemed  to  find  greater  ad- 
vantage, in  view  of  immediate  facilities,  on  the  Yokohama  side, 
where  the  Japanese  desired  to  fix  them,  and  had  gone  to  great 
expense  with  that  object.  Both  may  have  been  right  from 
these  separate  points  of  view — the  Ministers  looking  to  nation- 
al and  permanent  interests,  the  merchants  to  what  was  indi- 
vidual and  temporary.  That  is  a  question  which  need  not  be 
discussed  now,  and  it  is  not,  in  fact,  before  the  meeting.  But 
as  there  has  been  no  little  misconception  (I  do  not  wish  to  use 
any  harder  word)  as  to  the  real  facts  and  the  action  of  Her 
Majesty's  authorities,  it  may  not  perhaps  be  without  advantage 
to  all  if  I  offer  a  few  words  of  explanation  in  respect  to  the 
past,  as  tending  to  clear  the  way  to  a  good  understanding  for 
the  future. 

'  We  will  not  discuss  who  was  right  or  wrong,  or  whether 
any  thing  better  could  have  been  done  at  first  than  to  leave 
the  question  to  be  decided  by  events,  the  progress  of  the  set- 


144  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  VI. 

tleraent  being  left  to  itself  in  a  great  degree.  It  is  no  very 
grave  reproach  to  those  who  have  only  temporary  interests  at 
stake  to  charge  them  with  preferring  these  to  any  future  per- 
manent advantages.  So  neither  is  it  a  very  legitimate  subject 
of  reproach  to  Consul  or  Ministers,  who  by  office  are  the  rep- 
resentatives of  interests  that  are  national  and  permanent,  if 
they  should  keep  these  constantly  in  view,  as  the  more  impor- 
tant, whatever  may  be  the  pressure  of  that  which  is  individual 
and  fleeting,  and  follow  the  line  of  duty  thus  indicated  without 
fear  or  seeking  after  popularity.  Of  course,  the  two  classes  of 
interests  can  not  always  be  very  perfectly  reconciled  to  each 
other,  and  this  will  lead  to  a  conflict  of  interests  and  opinions. 
But  in  such  a  contingency  you  have  at  least  the  satisfaction  of 
knowing  that  neither  the  Consul  nor  Minister  can  have  any 
personal  interests  to  consult ;  they  neither  trade  nor  deal  in 
land.  And  it  is  going  very  far  a-field  for  adverse  motives  to 
attribute  to  either  petty  feelings  of  spite  and  ill  will  because 
British  subjects  may  have  thought  their  own  views  the  best, 
and  acted  upon  them  to  the  best  of  their  power.' 

A  resume  of  the  whole  subject  will  be  found  in  the  Report 
of  a  public  meeting  convened  by  the  Consul,*  if  any  one  should 
feel  sufficient  interest  in  the  subject  to  turn  to  it  for  all  the 
facts. 

In  order  not  to  return  to  the  subject  myself,  I  have  greatly 
anticipated  time.  But  we  must  go  back  to  the  first  day  of 
my  arrival  and  landing  at  Yokohama,  where  more  diplomatic 
troubles  were  in  store.  I  went  on  shore  as  soon  as  the  '  Samp- 
son' had  cast  anchor,  and  it  was  impossible  not  to  be  struck 
with  the  admirable  and  costly  structures  of  granite  which  the 
Japanese  had  so  rapidly  raised,  in  a  large  broad  pier  running 
far  into  the  bay,  and  a  long  flight  of  steps,  at  which  twenty 
boats  might  land  their  passengers  or  cargoes  at  the  same  time. 
Immediately  in  front  was  a  large  official -looking  building, 
which  was  pointed  out  as  the  custom-house,  and  thither  we 
proceeded  to  find  some  of  the  officials  and  an  interpreter.  The 
gate  gave  entrance  into  a  court-yard,  paved  with  stones  from 
the  beach,  and  round  the  four  sides  were  ranges  of  offices, 
some  evidently  still  in  the  carpenters'  hands.  Every  where 
there  were  signs  of  a  rush  having  been  made  to  get  into  some 
sort  of  occupation  and  preparedness  by  July  l,the  day  fixed 
by  our  treaty  for  the  opening  of  the  port.  In  one  of  the  large 
apartments  we  found  two  grave-looking  officials  seated  on  their 
heels  '  at  the  receipt  of  customs,'  with  scales  and  weights,  and 
a  glittering  heap  of  new  coins,  the  currency  of  Japan,  we  were 
*  Appendix  B. 


Chap.  VI.]  THE  CURRENCY.  145 

told,  ready  to  be  exchanged, '  according  to  treaty,'  for  dollars. 
Immediately  several  of  the  party,  eager  to  be  possessed  of  a 
currency,  as  they  were  preparing  to  visit  the  shops,  threw  their 
dollars  into  the  empty  scale,  and  obtained  for  each  two  fine- 
looking  coins, '  weight  for  weight,'  most  religiously  exact,  as 
stipulated  in  the  treaty  regulations !  The  Government  seem- 
ed to  have  exceeded  all  expectations  in  their  preparations, 
with  an  eagerness  and  a  completeness  that  was  calculated  to 
disarm  the  most  suspicious  nature !  After  some  conversation 
with  two  of  tlie  Governors  of  Foreign  Affairs  as  to  a  location 
for  the  Consul  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  bay,  which  they  de- 
clared could  not  he  given^  we  turned  down  the  main  street,  and 
here  witnessed  a  scene  which  could  hardly  have  been  enacted 
any  where  except  in  Russia,  where  whole  villages  appeared  as 
if  by  magic,  at  the  mandate  of  Potemkin,  to  greet  the  Empress 
Catharine  in  her  progress  through  her  dominions,  with  evi- 
dence of  a  flourishing  and  populous  empire,  where  ten  days  be- 
fore there  was  only  a  desert.  Here,  out  of  a  marsh  by  the 
edge  of  a  deserted  bay,  a  wave  of  the  conjuror's  wand  had  cre- 
ated a  considerable  and  bustling  settlement  of  Japanese  mer- 
chants. A  large  wide  street  was  bordered  on  both  sides  with 
handsome,  well-built  houses  of  timber  and  mud  walls.  But  the 
occupants  had  evidently  only  that  very  morning  been  precipi- 
tated in ;  their  goods  were  still  for  the  greater  part  unpacked ; 
while  frantic  efforts  were  being  made  by  servants  and  porters, 
in  a  state  of  deliquescence,  to  make  some  sort  of  show  of  the 
salable  contents. 

Partly  to  encourage  such  devotion  to  our  interests,  and  with 
some  of  the  eagerness  which  children  of  the  largest  growth 
are  not  quite  exempted  from  feeling — to  spend  money  already 
in  the  pocket  for  that  purpose,  various  articles  were  priced  by 
some  of  the  juniors.  And  nothing  could  seem  more  reasona- 
ble !  '  Six  itziboos  for  that  charming  glove-box ;  what  can  be 
cheaper !  Three  itziboos  to  the  dollar — why,  that  is  only  two 
dollars !  Here,  my  friend,  here  is  your  price  without  haggling 
— two  dollars.' 

A  suspicious  look,  and  a  shake  of  the  head  with  averted 
palm,  created  a  momentary  pause,  until  it  was  suggested  that, 
as  at  Nagasaki,  they  could  only  receive  Japanese  money.  'Ah ! 
all  right ;  here  it  is,  bright  and  fresh  from  the  mint,  two  for  the 
dollar ;  therefore  two  of  them — what  do  they  call  them  again  ? 
— two  of  them  must  be  equal  to  three  itziboos — one  and  a  half 
each — ay,  that  is  the  calculation.  Now,  my  friend,  open  your 
palm ;  there  it  is,  four  of  these  large  bright  coins :  I  wish  I 
could  remember  their  name !'    But  the  palm  turned  them  over, 

G 


146  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  VI. 

and  again  the  head  shook,  but  this  time  four  fingers  were  held 
up  three  times  in  rapid  succession.  'Why,  what  does  he  mean ? 
He  asked  six  itziboos,  which  I  have  given,  and  now  he  wants 
twelve !  What  an  extortionate  Jew !'  This  evidently  required 
the  aid  of  language  and  an  Interpreter,  and  with  such  help  the 
explanation  was  as  easy  as  it  was  unsatisfactory.  Each  of  the 
bright  coins  were,  indeed,  the  weight  of  one  and  a  half  itziboos, 
but  they  bore  the  mint  mark  and  value  oi  half  an  itziboo! 
There  it  was,  clear  enough, '  ni-shi' — half.  Oh,  what  a  fall  was 
there!  Had  the  bright  silver  been  turned  into  the  shriveled 
leaves  of  the  sorcerer,  they  could  not  have  been  looked  upon 
with  more  profound  disgust  and  surprise.  There  were  no  pur- 
chases made  that  morning ;  one  of  the  party,  who  had  been 
the  most  eager,  ruefully  remarking, '  The  things  are  remarka- 
bly pretty,  but  to  clip  the  dollar  of  two  thirds  of  its  value  will 
make  them  rather  dear  to  the  holders  of  that  coin.' 

And  this  was  the  second  great  diplomatic  struggle  into 
which  I  felt  myself  thrust  before  noon  on  July  1.  Not  con- 
tent with  fixing  a  site  by  anticipation  to  suit  their  own  pur- 
pose, they  had  also  cleverly  prepared  a  currency,  keeping  what 
seemed  the  promise  to  the  ear,  but  breaking  it  to  the  heart. 
The  letter  of  the  treaty  might  be  there,  but  assuredly  not  the 
spirit,  seeing  that  the  dollar,  thus  ingeniously  depressed  from 
three  itziboos,  its  equivalent  value  by  weight  when  the  treaty 
was  signed,  to  one,  bid  fair  to  make  Japan,  supposed  to  be  one 
of  the  cheapest  countries  in  the  world,  the  very  dearest.  Un- 
less imports  could  be  sold  at  the  same  rate,  it  was  quite  clear 
no  exports  could  be  purchased.  There  have  not  been  wanting 
Europeans  (chiefly  visitors),  and  some  among  the  Dutch  resi- 
dents, I  think,  who  have  contended  that  the  Japanese  were 
right  in  considering  the  itziboo  as  a  mere  '  bank  token,'  having 
a  money  value  far  above  its  real  worth  as  so  much  silver,  and 
that  to  hold  them  to  the  exact  terms  of  the  American  and  sub- 
sequent treaties,  bound  to  give  weight  for  weight  of  the  then 
existing  silver  coins  for  European  coins,  was  to  inflict  upon 
them  a  wrong  and  a  loss.  But  without  going  into  the  differ- 
ent theories  of  a  currency,  it  seemed  to  me  then,  as  it  does 
still,  that  there  was  a  ready  means  of  testing  the  truth  or  fal- 
lacy of  the  Japanese  argument.  Their  silver  currency  might 
be,  and  was,  no  doubt,  ill  adjusted,  in  regard  to  the  relative 
value  of  gold  and  copper  in  Europe.  And  now  that  trading 
relations  with  the  West  were  being  established,  it  might  be 
essential  that  some  readjustment  should  take  place,  with  special 
reference  to  the  relative  current  value  of  the  three  metals  in 
European  countries.    Their  gold  was  much  too  low,  and  so 


Chap.  VI.]  THE  CURRENCY.  147 

also  was  their  copper,  compared  with  the  silver,  since  an  ounce 
and  a  third  of  silver  (or  four  itziboos)  were  worth  a  gold  co- 
bang,  valued  in  Europe  by  our  standard  at  18s.,  or  between  3 
and  4  oz.,  and  the  same  amount  of  silver  in  Japan  would  pur- 
chase 4800  copper  cash ;  whereas,  even  in  China,  a  Mexican 
dollar  (about  an  ounce  in  weight)  would  not  buy  more  than 
from  1000  to  1200.  To  leave  their  currency  without  modifi- 
cation, therefore,  was  simply  to  insure  the  sudden  export  of 
all  their  gold  and  copper  in  exchange  for  European  silver. 
No  wonder  the  Japanese  looked  upon  such  a  contingency  with 
great  anxiety  and  alarm ;  and  I  suggested  to  them  at  once  an 
effective  remedy,  by  altering  the  relative  mint  value  of  their 
gold  and  silver  coinage,  increasing  the  value  of  the  former  from 
four  itziboos  to  twelve  or  thirteen,  bringing  it  sufficiently  close 
to  the  average  rates  in  Europe  to  secure  them  from  any  oper- 
ations for  the  export  of  gold.  Unfortunately,  I  think,  they 
hesitated,  insisting  upon  altering  the  mint  value  of  their  silver 
by  depreciating  it  two  thirds  in  relation  to  the  copper  coin, 
not  to  prevent  the  export  of  the  latter,  but  to  increase  the 
price  to  foreigners  of  all  Japanese  produce.  At  least  this 
would  obviously  be  the  immediate  effect.  Their  fixed  idea 
was,  that  all  Japanese  produce  and  manufactures  could  be 
bought  vastly  below  their  true  value,  if  the  ounce  of  silver,  in 
the  shape  of  a  dollar,  was  allowed  to  circulate  as  the  equiva- 
lent of  three  itziboos,  corresponding  in  weight.  I  endeavored 
to  convince  them,  by  reference  to  the  market-prices  in  the 
chief  trading  marts  of  Asia  from  Constantinople  to  Pekin,  that, 
except  in  the  one  article  of  copper  (and  gold  as  it  then  stood), 
the  ounce  of  silver,  even  when  converted  into  three  itziboos, 
would  not  purchase  more  of  the  commonest  articles  of  con- 
sumption or  of  labor  than  elsewhere ;  and,  consequently,  that 
to  depreciate  the  silver  currency  in  regard  to  the  copper  cur- 
rency, by  which  all  produce  was  sold  or  its  market  value  esti- 
mated, could  only  have  the  effect  of  shutting  out  the  foreigner 
from  their  market  altogether,  except  in  so  far  as  he  could  deal 
by  way  of  barter,  exchanging  European  goods  against  Japan- 
ese. If  a  dollar  (or  an  ounce  of  silver)  would  buy  so  many 
pounds  of  rice  in  India,  Siam,  or  China,  and  so  many  days'  la- 
bor, the  prices  of  both  being  perfectly  well  known,  subject  to 
little  fluctuation  in  ordinary  times,  and  always  easily  ascertain- 
able, while  in  Japan  only  one  third  the  quantity  could  be  pur- 
chased with  it,  no  argument  could  be  needed  to  prove  that 
any  but  a  barter  trade  would  be  impossible;  and  that  the  itzi- 
boo  did  not,  as  they  held,  represent  a  fictitiorts  vah(e  in  the 
produce  market^  rendering  it  worth  more,  by  two  thirds,  th.nn 


148  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  VI. 

the  same  weight  of  silver  over  the  leugth  and  breadth  of  Asia. 
It  would  certainly  buy  more  copper  and  more  gold,  but  not 
more  food  or  labor.  Ultimately,  as  will  be  seen,  ti)ey  altered 
their  gold  coinage  to  the  European  standard,  but  too  late  to 
prevent  large  exportations  and  much  mischief.  They  protect- 
ed their  copper  currency  by  withdrawing  it,  and  circulating 
iron  cash  instead ;  but  to  this  day  they  seek  to  carry  out  their 
original  plan  of  altering  the  silver  coinage,  the  direct  and  cer- 
tain effect  of  which,  it  would  seem,  must  be  to  close  the  Japan- 
ese markets  to  all  foreign  dealers,  save  to  the  extent  in  which 
they  can  exchange  goods^  not  silver,  for  native  produce.  Is  not 
this  the  effect  contemplated  and  desired?  This  seems  only 
too  probable.  Sooner  or  later,  silver  being  depreciated  in  val- 
ue to  the  extent  of  some  twenty -five  per  cent.,  a  self-adjusting 
process  might  bring  the  Japanese  dealer  to  regard  his  silk  and 
tea  as  worth  so  much  gold  instead  of  silver,  and  the  former 
might  thus  restore  the  balance.  The  gold  cobang  piece  being 
worth  the  same  amount  of  cash  in  Japan,  and  of  silver,  could 
be  by  treaty  claimed  from  the  Japanese  in  exchange  for  Eu- 
ropean gold  coins,  weight  for  weight ;  and  in  this  way  gold 
instead  of  silver  might  be  imported,  and  supply  the  means  of 
purchase  to  the  foreign  trader.  But,  assuming  the  state  of 
exchange  would  admit  such  an  operation,  the  Japanese  Gov- 
ernment are  not  bound,  except  in  payment  of  duties,  to  receive 
our  gold  weight  for  weight,  and  they  profess  inability  to  com- 
pel their  subjects.  There  can  be  little  doubt,  therefore,  that 
the  first  effects  of  the  change  still  contemplated  by  the  Japan- 
ese Government  would  be  to  put  a  sudden  stop  to  all  Euro- 
pean trade,  since  it  would  have  the  effect  of  raising  the  price 
to  foreigners  of  all  native  produce  from  fifty  to  seventy  per 
cent. 

Dissatisfied  with  the  location,  which  I  yet  foresaw  it  would 
be  diflScult  or  impossible  to  change  ;  refused  a  place  of  resi- 
dence in  Kanagawa  for  a  consular  oflScer,  where  of  right  it 
could  be  claimed  for  both  consuls  and  merchants  (as  they  were 
compelled  to  admit  later) ;  menaced  with  a  depreciation  of  the 
dollar  to  two  thirds  of  its  value  by  a  juggle,  much  too  cleverly 
conceived  in  reference  to  the  wording  of  the  treaty,  and  too 
effectually  set  on  foot  to  be  easily  set  aside,  I  returned  to  Yed- 
do  with  no  pleasant  anticipations  of  my  first  diplomatic  passes 
with  the  Japanese  Government,  taking  back  with  me  the  Vice- 
consul  I  had  purposed  installing  at  the  newly-opened  port.  A 
residence  was  speedily  obtained  at  Kanagawa  (though  declared 
impossible  three  days  before) ;  but  no  sooner  was  it  granted 
than  I  had  to  combat  a  pretension  of  the  Japanese  Govern- 


Chap.  VI.]  FIRST  DIFFICULTmS.  140 

ment  to  close  the  road  between  us,  and  deny  all  right  to  trav- 
el between  the  Legations  and  Consulates  on  the  high  road. 

My  American  colleague  and  I  had  thus  for  a  beginning  three 
as  troublesome  and  harassing  questions  as  could  well  have 
been  desired  for  a  diplomatic  agent.  A  disputed  site  for  a 
foreign  settlement,  after  the  native  government  had  expended 
large  sums  upon  one,  and  merchants  were  on  the  .spot,  urgent 
for  land  and  instant  accommodation  ;  a  currency  question 
which  struck  at  the  root  of  all  trade  ;  and,  finally,  an  attempt 
to  dispute  a  right  of  road  between  the  capital  and  the  port, 
even  to  the  members  of  the  Legations.  I  should  scarcely  have 
entered  upon  my  troubles  at  this  outset  of  the  Mission  in  Ja- 
pan were  it  not  that  a  narrative  of  my  residence  in  the  Capital 
would  be  very  imperfect,  and  only  calculated  to  give  a  false 
impression  of  the  people  we  have  to  deal  with,  if  such  incidents 
were  omitted.  Indeed,  any  record  of  such  a  residence,  with- 
ont  reference  to  these  ever-recurring  struggles  between  the 
Minister,  whose  business  it  is  to  insist  upon  the  observance  of 
treaties,  and  the  Japanese  rulers,  whose  peculiar  pleasure  and 
duty  it  seemed  to  be  to  render  them  nugatory  and  void  in  ef- 
fect, would  be  the  Moor  of  Venice  without  Othello.  Even  in 
looking  back,  with  the  pleasant  remembrance  of  difficulties 
overcome,  of  doubts  resolved,  and  of  dangers  escaped,  there 
still  Hngers  a  weary  sense  of  the  trouble  that  preyed  upon  the 
soul,  and  the  pain  and  anxiety  of  a  position  in  which  every 
thing  had  to  be  won  by  hard  fighting,  or  defended  with  a  de- 
termined front  and  wary  eye.  All  this,  too,  where  a  false  step 
or  an  error  in  judgment  might  be  as  fatal  to  the  diplomatist  as 
to  a  traveler  climbing  up  a  steep  acclivity,  with  a  measureless 
depth  below  him,  down  which  he  may  be  suddenly  precipi- 
tated without  power  to  arrest  his  descent,  or  any  hope  of  ever 
obtaining  a  foothold  lost. 

I  do  not  think  I  slept  very  soundly  that  night.  I  know  I 
rose  the  next  morning  very  tired,  and  proceeded  to  land  all  my 
goods,  chattels,  and  belongings,  and  install  myself,  with  a  feel- 
ing of  utter  weariness  at  the  task  I  saw  looming  before  me, 
of  the  true  nature  and  extent  of  which  I  had  from  the  first  a 
tolerably  clear  conception. 


150  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  VII. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Exchange  of  Ratifications. —  News  of  the  Repulse  at  the  Peiho. — Hermit 
Life  in  Yeddo. — Conditions  of  Exile  and  Isolation. — Life  in  a  Wilderness 
of  Men  and  Women. 

On  Wednesday,  July  6,  1859,  I  landed  officially,  and  the 
British  flag  for  the  first  time  was  unfurled  in  evidence  of  a  per- 
manent Legation  in  the  Capital  of  the  Tycoon. 

While  still  in  the  midst  of  the  confusion  incident  to  installa- 
tion at  a  new  post  in  an  Eastern  land,  it  was  necessary  to  pay 
an  official  visit  to  the  Ministers  of  Foreign  Affairs,  who,  in 
Japan,  are  of  course  in  dual  form ;  the  one  apparently  to  speak, 
and  the  other  to  observe.  They  are  each  of  them  Daimios, 
and  the  first,  Manake  Sinioosano  Kami,  was  also  at  this  time 
President  of  the  Gorogio^  or  great  Council  of  State,  consisting 
of  five  members  of  the  Daimio  class,  and  corresponding,  in  a 
great  degree,  to  our  Cabinet,  in  Avhora  the  executive  power 
seems  vested.  The  second  was  Waisaka  Nakatsukano  Faya, 
also  a  member  of  the  Council,  and  it  was  at  his  official  resi- 
dence the  interview  took  place.  From  Tozengee  the  distance 
was  little  less  than  five  miles,  and  although  a  July  sun  in  Ja- 
pan, with  the  thermometer  standing  at  ninety  degrees  in  the 
shade,  is  not  to  be  regarded  with  levity,  I  had  taken  so  great 
a  dislike  to  tlie  cramped  space  afforded  by  the  ordinary  Nori- 
mon  that  I  determined  to  go  on  horseback.  And  a  long  and 
sultry  ride  we  found  it.  The  Yamaske  of  Waisaka  was  in  the 
heart  of  the  official  quarter,  and  within  the  circle  of  the  second 
moat.  Our  reception  was  very  formal,  and  the  visit  being 
strictly  official  and  one  of  ceremony,  no  discussion  was  entered 
into  or  business  transacted  beyond  fixing  the  day  and  settling 
the  preliminaries  for  the  exchange  of  ratifications,  which,  to 
my  great  relief,  I  found  they  were  quite  disposed  to  expedite, 
instead  of  raising  difficulties  for  purposes  of  delay.  It  is  true 
my  congratulatory  feeling  was  somewhat  premature,  for  near- 
ly the  whole  intervening  period  of  seven  days  was  taken  up  in 
discussing  with  the  Governors  of  Foreign  Affairs*  the  mode  in 
which  the  deed  was  to  be  accomplished,  and  at  the  end  a  seri- 
ous misundeistanding  arose  about  the  day  originally  fixed. 
Even  after  this,  when  the  cortege  was  on  the  very  point  of 

*  These  officers  may  be  considered  as  Under  Secretaries  of  State,  and 
have  somewhat  similar  functions. 


Chap  VII.]  FIRST  OFFICIAL  RECEPTION.  151 

Starting,  an  objection  was  raised  to  the  guard  of  honor,  which 
it  had  been  previously  settled  should  accompany  and  surround 
the  canopied  platform  on  which  the  treaty  was  carried.  '  Boast 
not  of  day  till  night  has  made  it  thine !'  is  good  advice  every 
where,  but  in  Japan,  of  all  countries,  it  is  well  to  remember  it 
and  not  be  over  sanguine ! 

It  really  seemed  as  if  some  Nemesis  of  retribution  was  on  my 
track,  to  make  me  pay  for  my  easy  victory  in  establishing  a 
right  of  residence,  where  I  certainly  had  anticipated  the  first 
and  greatest  difficulty  would  be  experienced.  I  was  allowed 
no  time,  however,  for  vain  boasting,  or  any  presumption  found- 
ed on  a  first  success ;  and,  although  it  was  a  sore  trial  while  it 
lasted,  I  have  since  been  disposed  to  be  thankful  that  thus  ear- 
ly, in  a  new  field,  where  every  thing  had  to  be  learned  as  to 
the  feelings,  motives,  and  policy  of  those  with  whom  it  was 
necessarj^  to  establish  relations  of  startling  novelty,  and  where 
novelty  itself  was  a  sufficient  condemnation,  I  had  to  struggle 
through  almost  every  form  of  difficulty  that  could  be  conceiv- 
ed. It  certainly  impressed  upon  me,  from  the  beginning,  the 
necessity  of  untiring  patience  and  forbearance,  witliout  which 
I  soon  saw  nothing  could  be  efiected. 

That  these  preliminary  discussions  about  mere  matters  of 
form,  when  the  thivg  was  secured,  were  tiresome  to  the  last 
degree,  and  often  seemed  inteiminable,  will  easily  be  under- 
stood. Each  night,  after  another  day  had  been  consumed  in 
discussions  which  settled  nothing,  I  felt  the  lesson  sink  deeper, 
that  the  first  virtue  of  a  diplomatist  in  Japan  must  he  patience! 

A  very  slight  sketch  of  the  progress  made  from  day  to  day 
will  show  how  much  this  one  virtue  was  tried.  When  the  of- 
ficial interview  with  the  ministers  took  place,  the  order  of  pro- 
ceeding had  been  discussed.  I  was  the  bearer  of  one  of  the 
two  copies  of  the  treaty  made  in  English,  Dutch,  and  Japanese, 
each  signed  by  Lord  Elgin  and  the  Japanese  plenipotentiaries, 
to  which  the  sign  manual  and  the  great  seal  were  attached ; 
and  my  instructions  were  to  receive  back  the  other  copy  left 
with  the  Japanese,  bearing  the  original  signatures  and  seals  of 
the  plenipotentiaries,  the  Tycoon's  ratification  and  seal  being 
in  like  manner  attached. 

Unfortunately,  it  seemed  the  Tycoon's  ratification  had  al- 
ready been  obtained  (so  at  least  they  said)  to  a  copy  'more 
beautifully  written  and  elaborately  bound,'  and  it  was  '  impos- 
sible any  change  could  be  made!'  The  Tycoon's  seal  could 
neither  be  attached  a  second  time,  nor  shifted  to  the  original 
copy.  A  long  demur  to  this  arrangement  led  to  an  offer  on 
their  part  to  surrender  the  original,  as  well  as  the  copy  bearing 


162  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  VII. 

the  Tycoon's  ratification,  and  to  this  I  consented  with  some 
rehictance.  In  view  of  the  apparent  impossibility  of  carrying 
out  my  instructions  to  the  letter,  it  only  behooved  me  to  secure 
the  essential  part,  which  was  the  Tycoon's  ratification  to  the 
treaty,  and  for  this  a  correct  and  attested  copy  was,  to  all  in- 
tents and  purposes,  the  same  as  one  bearing  the  signatures  of 
the  plenipotentiaries. 

Next  day  it  turned  out  that  the  copy  to  be  offered  was  only 
a  copy  of  the  Japanese  versio7i,  which  neither  I  nor  any  one 
attached  to  me  could  read.  This  I  peremptorily  refused,  say- 
ing '  the  treaty'  consisted  of  three  versions  in  their  integrity, 
and  not  one  only;  but  if  any  one  was  more  essential  than  the 
rest,  it  was  the  Dutch,  w^hich  both  could  read. 

While  this  was  yet  undecided,  another  night  passed,  and 
then,  late  on  the  Sunday  evening,  came  Moriyaraa  and  one  of 
the  Governors  of  Foreign  Affairs,  in  a  state  of  great  trepida- 
tion to  all  appearance.  '  There  was  an  unfortunate  mistake  in 
the  day  appointed  for  the  exchange.  Moriyama,  the  interpret- 
er, had  rendered  it  Monday ;  all  the  preparations  had  been 
made,  the  Council  of  State  and  Tycoon  himself  informed ;  and 
the  disgrace  of  Moriyama,  and  his  dismissal,  would  be  the  least 
consequence  ifJie  had  to  avow  his  mistake.^  'What,'  I  said, 
'  if  we  took  it  upon  ourselves,  as  an  error  in  the  interpretation, 
and  exonerated  him  ?'  '  Useless,  quite :  it  would  then  be  said 
that  Moriyama  had  induced  you  to  write  to  that  effect  merely 
to  screen  himself,  and  his  position  would  be  worse  than  ever!' 

What  was  to  be  done  ?  Was  all  this  merely  simulated  (if 
80,  he  and  the  Governor  were  both  excellent  actors),  and  was 
there  some  hidden  object  to  be  gained,  some  intrigue  being 
played  off  ap:ainst  us  ?  I  was  now  offered  the  ratification  of 
the  Tycoon  to  the  original  treaty  (so  lately  declared  '  impossi- 
ble'). What  was  the  real  motive  of  this  sudden  willingness  to 
give  themselves  the  lie,  and  desperate  effort  to  alter  all  the  ar- 
rangements, and  hurry  me  through  the  ratifications  the  next 
tnorning,  instead  of  Tuesday,  the  day  fixed,  and,  beyond  doubt, 
clearly  understood?  Was  there  some  sinister  intention  of 
palming  off  upon  me  at  last  a  mere  Japanese  copy,  or  hustling 
me  through  the  exchange  with  the  omission  of  some  essential 
formality  on  their  part  ?  It  was  hard  to  say ;  but  enough  ap- 
peared to  rouse  suspicion,  and  I  declared,  in  the  most  unmis- 
takable terms,  that  I  would  neither  undertake  to  make  any 
change,  nor  even  to  keep  the  appointment  on  Tuesday^  unless 
I  received,  in  writing^  a  formal  declaration  from  the  Ministers 
of  Foreign  Affairs  that  I  should  have  the  original  treaty,  bear- 
ing the  seals  and  signatures  of  the  plenipotentiaries ;  and  at- 


Chap.VIL]  vexed  preliminaries.  153 

tached  to  it  the  ratification  of  the  Tycoon,  with  his  seal  and 
the  signatures  of  the  two  ministers.  A  new  difficulty  this.  It 
was  late,  the  distances  couKiderable,  rendering  it  impossible, 
before  an  early  liour  in  the  morning,  to  get  such  written  com- 
munication from  the  ministers  to  me;  too  late  to  make  the 
preliminary  arrangements  for  landing  the  '  Sampson's'  marines, 
etc.  '  Why  would  not  the  verbal  assurance  do  ?'  '  Too  many 
mistakes  already,'  I  replied  ;  '  arrived  at  the  minister's,  I  might 
learn  that  one  more  had  been  made  "  by  the  interpreters^''  and 
that  the  Tycoon's  ratification,  in  due  form,  was  not  attached 
to  the  original  treaty,  when  I  should  be  compelled  to  return 
with  the  originals,  bearing  the  Queen's  signature,  without  ef- 
fecting the  exchange ;  and  I  did  not  choose  to  risk  being  placed 
in  such  a  position.'  *  Would  the  written  declaration  of  the 
Chief  Governor  of  Foreign  Affairs  answer  the  purpose  T  (No 
such  official,  by-the-by,  existed,  as  I  afterward  knew.)  'Yes, 
if  I  received  it  during  the  night ;  and  in  that  case  I  would  con- 
sent to  the  exchange  taking  place  the  following  day,  and,  in 
anticipation  of  its  arrival,  write  at  once  to  Captain  Hand  to 
make  the  necessary  arrangements. 

At  one  o'clock  came  the  formal  written  assurance.  The 
next  morning,  July  11,  a  bright  and  scorching  sun  gave  sure 
promise  of  a  trying  day.  The  distance  to  the  official  residence 
of  the  minister,  I  now  learned,  was  four  miles  by  Japanese 
measure.  The  treaty  was  to  be  carried  in  procession  before 
me  through  the  city,  under  a  canopy  ornamented  with  flags 
and  evergreens,  surrounded  by  a  guard  of  marines,  and  fol- 
lowed by  fifty  blue-jackets.  Captain  Hand,  with  a  large  num- 
ber of  his  officers  in  uniform  and  on  horseback,  followed  im- 
mediately after  the  four  petty  officers  carrying  the  treaty.  Just 
an  hour  before  starting,  the  officer  who  had  to  conduct  us  came 
to  declare,  the  guard  covld  not  enter  the  official  quarter !  It 
was  too  late  to  make  any  change  without  damage.  They  had 
had  four  days'  notice,  and  no  objection  had  been  taken.  This 
was  their  answer  therefore.  But  the  sudden  announcement 
left  room  for  anxiety  and  suspicion. 

The  long  line  of  march  of  this  ]>rocession,  through  the  wide 
streets  of  Yeddo,  was  a  novel  sight  for  the  inhabitants  of  the 
capital — one  such  as  had  never  been  seen  before.  A  treaty 
with  a  Foreign  Power  carried  in  state,  preceded  by  the  flag  of 
Great  Britain,  surrounded  by  a  guard  of  honor,  and  followed 
by  a  large  escort  of  mounted  oflicers,  with  the  Representative 
of  the  Queen  at  the  head,  were  novelties  indeed.  On  through 
the  populous  commercial  quarter  we  took  our  way,  across  the 
first  broad  moat  (an  anxious  moment  for  the  two  chiefs  of  the 

G2 


154  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  VII. 

civil  and  naval  branches),  unstopped  by  gate,  portcullis,  or 
guard — right  on  into  the  first  fortified  enceinte  of  the  official 
quarter.  The  outer  crowd  of  shopkeepers  and  industrial  class- 
es now  left  behind,  a  new  crowd  of  retainers  of  the  various 
feudal  princes,  whose  palaces  lay  on  either  side  of  the  route, 
supplied  their  place,  keeping  the  road  with  long  batons.  Slow- 
ly the  cortege  passed  on  to  the  second  moat,  wider  and  deeper 
than  the  first,  and  more  resembling  a  river  than  an  artificial 
moat.  The  gates  of  the  second  enceinte  are  before  us;  but 
they,  too,  turn  slowly,  as  if  half  reluctant,  on  their  massive 
hinges  (shut  expressly  to  be  opened  for  our  passage,  as  I  aft- 
erward knew,  for  I  often  saw,  with  my  own  eyes,  that  they  re- 
mained habitually  open),  and  at  last  the  minister's  residence  is 
gained.  It  lies  to  the  left  of  a  broad  glacis,  in  front  of  the  last 
fortified  inclosure  standing  on  a  higher  level,  where  the  palace 
of  the  Tycoon  and  the  royal  domain  is  seen.  The  guard  form- 
ed outside ;  and,  opening  their  ranks,  the  treaty  was  carried  in 
by  the  bearers  under  its  canopy,  followed  by  myself,  the  offi- 
cers of  the  Mission,  and  of  H.  M.  S. '  Sampson.'  The  full  powd- 
ers of  the  respective  plenipotentiaries  having  been  produced, 
and  the  other  formalities  accomplished,  by  comparing  the  two 
Dutch  versions,  signals,  arranged  by  the  Japanese  in  advance 
(by  fans  from  street  to  street),  conveyed  the  news  to  the 
'  Sampson,'  with  telegraphic  speed,  in  a  minute  and  a  half,  a 
distance  of  six  miles.  A  royal  salute  of  twenty-one  guns,  the 
British  and  Japanese  flags  at  the  main,  celebrated  the  exchange 
of  ratifications,  and  the  happy  conclusion  of  the  day's  ceremony, 
which  had  been  preceded  by  so  much  difficulty  and  so  many 
thorny  discussions.  The  Japanese  had  been  invited  to  fire  a 
salute  also,  but  they  urged  the  inconvenience  of  departing  from 
their  own  customs,  etc.,  and  it  was  not  pressed.  They  found 
no  impossibility  later,  however,  in  firing  such  a  salute,  under 
the  pressure  of  a  sufficient  object.  Well  it  was,  perhaps,  for 
the  interests  at  stake,  and  ray  position  in  Yeddo,  that  no  time 
had  been  lost,  for  only  a  few  days  later  news  arrived  of  the 
disaster  at  the  Peiho,  and  there  is  no  telling  whether  this  might 
not  have  disposed  them  to  devise  causes  of  indefinite  delay. 

Immediately  after  the  exchange  of  the  ratifications,  H. M.S. 
'  S  unpson'  took  her  departure,  and  for  many  weeks — months, 
no  English  pendant  appeared  in  Japanese  waters.  While  the 
first  weeks  were  slipping  on,  I  fairly  lost  count  of  the  days,  and 
got  up  one  morning  thinking  it  was  Friday,  until  some  better- 
informed  member  of  the  establishment  proved  it  was  only 
Wednesday.  Really  it  seemed  as  if  we  should  have  to  adopt 
Robinson  Crusoe's  notable  device  of  notching  a  stick  to  ena- 


Ghap.  VII.J  hermit  LIFE  IN  YEDDO.  155 

ble  us  to  keep  count  of  the  days  in  this  wilderness  of  men  and 
women,  and  total  isolation  from  all  of  European  race  or  civili- 
zation, where  no  Sunday  worship  or  Sabbath-day  bells  recur- 
red regularly  every  week,  to  mark  the  end  of  one  and  the  be- 
ginning of  another.  In  striking  contradiction  this,  by  the  way, 
to  the  broad  assertions  of  some  of  the  Sabbatarian  writers 
that  a  septennial  division  of  time  has  prevailed  all  over  the 
earth,  and  that  traces  of  it  at  least  may  be  found  in  every  coun- 
try. It  is  strange  how  this  often  reiterated  allegation,  so  pal- 
pably in  contradiction  with  known  facts,  could  ever  be  made, 
or  relied  upon  as  an  argument.  All  over  Asia,  this  division 
into  weeks  is,  I  believe,  utterly  unknown  to  this  day,  as  it  is  in 
Japan.  Through  all  antiquity,  in  Europe  and  Western  Asia, 
in  Egypt,  Greece,  and  Rome,  it  was  only  known,  if  known  at 
all,  as  a  custom  of  the  Jews.  Neither  Greeks  nor  Romans 
adopted  it  in  their  mode  of  reckoning  time.  And  when  a  new 
world  was  discovered  by  Columbus,  no  trace  of  the  supposed 
universal  weekly  measurement  of  time  was  discovered.  Nei- 
ther the  Red  Indian  and  hunting  nomades  of  North  America, 
nor  the  people  of  the  more  civilized  empires  of  the  Mexicans 
and  Peruvians,  had  any  cognizance  of  the  '  universally  known' 
seventh  day,  whether  as  one  of  particular  sanctity,  or  as  mark- 
ing a  fourth  part  of  a  lunar  month.  It  is  diflScult  not  to  doubt 
the  goodness  of  a  cause  when  its  advocates  keep  reiterating 
the  universality  of  a  fact  which  has  no  existence.  But  how 
gladly  one  would  hear  the  weekly  church-bell,  calling  to  serv- 
ice in  this  place  of  exile,  instead  of  the  early  matins  of  the  Pa- 
gan Bonzes,  announced  at  five  o'clock  by  the  deep  tones  of  a 
magnificent  bell,  struck  by  a  suspended  beam  from  the  out- 
side, and  the  long  muttered  orisons  which  follow  every  day 
with  little  cessation  for  many  hours,  and  again  at  five  in  the 
evening,  with  a  perseverance  and  regularity  worthy  of  a  bet- 
ter cause ! 

Such  total  absence  of  all  external  differences  between  one 
day  and  another  had  a  constant  tendency  to  blur  out  distinc- 
tions. In  the  hermit-like  seclusion  of  Tozengee,  the  same 
bright  sun  above  our  heads  from  day  to  day,  and  a  thick  screen 
of  wooded  hills  farther  shutting  out  the  world  beyond — the 
Pagan  world,  in  which  destiny  had  flung  a  little  knot  of  Chris- 
tians, and  with  it  the  world  of  a  kindred  creed  and  race,  from 
which  the  whole  breadth  of  Asia  on  the  one  side,  and  of  the 
Pacific  Ocean  on  the  other,  separated  us,  it  was  hard  to  realize 
any  distinction  of  days,  weeks,  or  months !  The  seasons  alone 
brought  their  own  distinctive  marks  with  them.  In  one,  per- 
haps the  truest  sense,  all  days  were  Sundays  here — days  of 


156  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  VII. 

solitary  reflection,  mingled  with  comparatively  few  secular  af- 
fairs or  interruptions  from  the  outer  world.  Nature,  in  glori- 
ous robes  of  beauty,  was  ever  inviting  to  contemplation,  and 
that  worship  of  the  heart  which  springs  from  a  constant  sense 
of  the  Divine  in  creation,  and  the  all-pervading  presence  of  a 
Supreme  Ruler,  governing  and  fashioning  to  wise,  but  often 
inscrutable  ends,  the  world  of  mind  and  matter.  In  the  broad 
avenues,  checkered  with  light  and  shade,  and  richly  colored 
with  every  variety  of  tint,  there  was  a  temple  which  nothing 
reared  by  man's  hands  by  aid  of  stone  and  mortar  could  rival. 
No  fretted  roof,  or  long-drawn  aisle  of  a  thousand  pillars,  could 
approach  it  in  beauty.  A  recluse  there  need  envy  no  worship- 
er in  Dom  or  Minster,  so  far  as  grace  or  richness  of  color  and 
material  forms  are  concerned;  the  communion  of  kindred 
hearts  in  prayer  and  worship  was  alone  wanting. 

A  strange  feeling  of  isolation  came  upon  me  when  the  con- 
fusion and  novelty  both  had  ceased.  Immediately  after  the 
exchange  of  the  ratifications,  as  already  stated,  H.  M.  S. '  Samp- 
son' had  taken  her  departure,  and  left  Her  Majesty's  Mission  to 
take  care  of  itself.  The  American  frigate  which  had  brought 
my  colleague,  the  Resident  Minister  of  the  United  Stales,  had 
hastened  to  follow  the  example.  We  were  thus  left,  the  Rep- 
resentatives of  two  great  Powers,  perfectly  isolated  and  un- 
supported in  the  capital  of  the  Tycoon,  surrounded  by  many 
hostile  elements  and  unknown  conditions,  without  the  pend- 
ant of  a  single  gunboat  in  the  Japanese  waters,  or  within  six 
weeks'  or  two  months'  call !  Whatever  might  be  the  difiicul- 
ties  or  the  dangers  of  such  a  position,  they  must  be  met  sin- 
gle-handed and  alone.  I  felt  as  though  the  dial  had  gone  back 
fourteen  years  with  me,  for  in  just  such  a  position  had  I  been 
dropped,  with  less  experience  to  guide  me,  at  Foochou,  the  cap- 
ital of  the  province  of  Fokien,  in  the  year  1844.  It  seems  not 
a  very  wise  or  politic  mode  of  proceeding,  but  I  never  knew 
it  otherwise.  I  never  knew  an  Admiral,  or  a  senior  officer,  I 
think,  who  did  not  seem  to  consider  the  first  duty  of  the  Com- 
mander of  a  ship  of  war,  after  dropping  a  Minister  or  a  Consul 
in  the  midst  of  a  semi-civilized  population,  as  a  man  drops  an 
awkward  burden,  was  to  disappear  as  fast  as  possible,  and 
leave  him  to  his  destiny  or  his  own  resources.  No  doubt  it  is 
quite  impossible  even  for  the  British  navy  to  supply  a  ship  en 
permanence  wherever  there  is  a  Legation  or  a  Consulate  with 
interests  to  defend  and  lives  to  protect.  And  there  will  al- 
ways be  more  demands  on  an  Admiral  in  the  far  East  than  he 
has  the  means,  whatever  may  be  his  inclination,  adequately  to 
meet.     Still  there  is  much  to  regret,  and  something  I  think  to 


Chap.VII.]  absolute  ISOLATION.  ]5Y 

amend,  in  the  practice  of  dropping  diplomatic  or  consular 
agents  in  the  most  remote  regions,  and  then  leaving  them  to 
take  care  of  themselves  as  they  best  can,  or  to  be  sacrificed  in 
the  attempt,  before  it  can  possibly  be  known  either  what  are 
the  conditions  under  which  the  duties  are  to  be  carried  on,  or 
the  dangers  and  difficulties  to  be  encountered.  It  may  well 
happen  that  the  very  objects  for  which  the  nation  incurs  the 
e-Kpense  and  liabilities  attaching  to  the  establishment  of  new 
Legations  or  Consular  ports  in  the  far  East  may  be  sacrificed 
and  utterly  lost  by  such  a  system  of  abandonment. 

I  sat  musing  one  day  under  the  deep  shadow  of  the  avenue, 
looking  across  the  bay,  flecked  only  with  white-sailed  fishing- 
boats,  and  there  came  before  me  a  vision  of  the  exile's  life  re- 
served for  me.  Shut  out  from  the  whole  world  of  interests  that 
bind  man  to  this  existence,  and  mingle  with  all  his  thoughts 
and  affections,  even  with  those  which  wing  their  way  to  that 
far  eternity  whither  all  are  hastening,  more  or  less  conscious^ 
ly,  I  saw  weeks  pass  on  without  any  tidings  from  beyond  the 
seas.  When  last  we  had  heard,  Austria  and  France  were  both 
in  arms,  and  the  French  Emperor  had  taken  the  field  at  the 
head  of  his  army  in  Italy.  What  had  happened  in  the  inter- 
val? Kingdoms  might  have  been  conquered,  or  shaken  to 
their  centre,  and,  in  the  conflict  and  din  of  arms,  dynasties  as 
well  as  nations  might  have  fallen.  But  of  all  that  might  have 
been  we  knew  nothing,  no  more  than  if  our  habitation  were  in 
another  planet.  When  a  mail  and  newspapers,  with  letters 
and  dispatches,  tardily  arrived,  it  was  as  if  the  cloud  and  va- 
pors which  surround  a  traveler  lost  on  some  high  mountain 
range  were  suddenly  rent  asunder,  displaying  a  moving  world 
of  life  and  action  at  his  feet,  where  before  all  was  stillness  and 
solitude.  It  was  to  waken  from  a  long  trance,  and  then  only 
to  hear  all  that  had  been  said  and  done  in  the  interval  of  total 
unconsciousness,  however  nearly  it  may  have  concerned  him. 
In  a  word,  it  was  to  receive  a  page  torn  out  of  the  history  of 
the  world,  a  fragment  telling  of  changes  of  empires  and  desti- 
nies— changes  of  all  things,  great  and  small,  which  make  up  the 
sum  of  national  and  individual  life,  that  had  happened  in  some 
distant  period,  while  all  knowledge  was  denied  of  events  tak- 
ing place  in  the  interval,  and  filling  up  the  space  between  the 
two.  In  these  days  of  rapid  and  certain  communication — of 
railway  traveling  and  electric  telegraphs — there  is  something 
especially  tantalizing  and  trying  in  this  forced  ignorance  of  all 
that  is — this  dwelling  on  ^  past  which  always  seems  remote, 
and  never  can  be  linked  on  to  the  present. 

There  are  days  when,  in  spite  of  some  active  occupation  and 


158  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  VII. 

study,  one  feels  that  to  take  office  in  a  country  so  isolated  from 
the  rest  of  the  world,  and  so  distant,  is  to  descend  alive  into  a 
sepulchre  of  the  dead.  Human  beings  there  are  about  you — 
there  is  no  stint  as  to  their  number — but  the  touch  of  sympa- 
thy which  makes  '  the  whole  world  kin'  is  wanting.  As  a  man 
never  feel»  more  alone  than  when  the  sense  of  loneliness  comes 
upon  him  in  a  crowd,  so  in  this  wilderness  of  living  men  the 
foreigner  is  too  entirely  a  stranger,  and  too  absolutely  repudi- 
ated as  having  any  thing  in  common  with  the  natives,  to  feel 
otherwise  than  banished,  and  exiled  from  all  social  intercourse. 
There  is  no  interchange  of  ideas,  no  intellectual  exercise,  no 
common  language ;  and  the  traditional  policy  of  exclusion  and 
isolation  still  prevailing  renders  all  these  impossibilities. 

The  little  mtercourse  foreigners  can  hold  for  the  first  years 
in  a  country  like  Japan,  Avhile  laboring  to  acquire  the  colloqui- 
al language,  must  be  through  some  half  dozen  interpreters, 
who  have  acquired  a  more  or  less  imperfect  knowledge  of 
Dutch.  The  hostility  of  the  Daimios  and  governing  powers 
will  long  continue  to  suscitate  acts  of  violence  and  ever-recur- 
ring occasions  of  petty  annoyance  or  impertinence,  with  a  sys- 
tematic plan  of  extortion  and  enormous  lying  by  all  the  offi- 
cials who  surround  the  foreign  missions,  and  the  tradesmen 
they  allow  to  approach.  Soon  after  we  were  domiciled,  I  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  this  must  be  a  cheap  country.  We  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  evidences  of  this  without  its  availing  much 
to  save  our  pockets.  A  picul  of  fine  rice  (130  lbs.)  could  be 
bought  for  a  dollar  and  a  half;  six  or  eight  fowls  for  the  same 
price.  Fish,  on  the  other  hand,  was  unaccountably  dear,  al- 
though the  large  bay  is  always  covered  with  fishing-boats.  It 
is  true  the  population  may  be  great  in  proportion,  but  the  fact 
can  not  account  for  the  extravagant  prices  we  were  made  to 
pay.  Of  the  systematic  extortion  to  which  we  were  subject- 
ed, indeed,  each  day  bi'ought  some  new  evidence. 

The  first  month  was  gliding  silently  away  when  one  day  I 
determined  to  penetrate  into  the  great  commercial  centre  of 
the  city,  where  they  had  several  times  assaulted  foreigners, 
and  Lord  Elgin  himself  had  been  pelted,  in  order  to  be  able  to 
judge,  and,  if  need  be,  to  speak  from  personal  observation. 
As  the  distance  was  great  and  the  weather  hot,  I  sent  word 
to  the  Japanese  oflicers  on  service  in  the  morning  to  procure 
a  good  boat,  with  four  or  six  rowers,  and  to  accompany  me, 
that  the  inhabitants  might  see  a  foreigner's  right  to  go  there 
unmolested  was  incontestable.  When  the  hour  came,  and  it 
was  too  late  to  make  other  arrangements,  I  found  an  open  boat, 
with  no  seat  or  awning,  exposed  to  the  blaze  of  the  sun,  and 


Chap.  VII.]       JAPANESE  EXTORTIONS  —HORSES.  159 

two  rowers  only,  one  a  miserable  old  man  of  sixty  or  seventy. 
This  was  either  a  piece  of  deliberate  impertinence,  to  punish 
me  for  objecting  to  their  extortionate  practices,  or  an  ofiicial 
manoeuvre  to  deter  me  from  going  at  all.  On  my  sharply  re- 
monstrating, they  uttered  only  a  few  nonchalant  excuses,  which 
were  palpable  lies,  such  as  that '  no  covered  boat  came  out  of 
the  river,'  though  we  met  several  within  an  hour.  I  did  not 
choose,  however,  to  forego  the  expedition,  and  so  we  proceed- 
ed. Great  crowds  met  us  on  landing,  and  followed  us  with  a 
boisterous  sort  of  hilarity — nothing  really  offensive,  or  hostile 
in  appearance,  however.  Once  only  a  piece  of  dried  mud  was 
thrown  as  we  were  standing  outside  a  shop.  In  passing  un- 
der the  bridges  we  saw  they  were  packed  with  a  dense  mass 
of  people.  They  offered  no  insult,  but  there  was  a  good  deal 
of  shouting  and  hooting,  which  was  certainly  not  intended  to 
be  either  respectful  or  complimentary.  We  went  into  some 
of  the  shops  and  bought  some  lacker- ware,  after  some  bargain- 
ing, though  the  greater  part  was  cheap  enough.  So  that  mere 
material  and  labor,  too,  must  be  cheap.  It  was  the  venality 
of  the  Officials  and  Compradors  about  us  that  alone  made 
things  dear.  One  instance  among  a  thousand  may  suffice  as 
an  example  of  the  wholesale  plundering  to  which  we  were  ex- 
posed— by  authority.  I  had  ordered  a  wash-hand-stand  of 
common  wood,  for  which  the  Comprador  had  the  modesty  to 
charge  nine  itziboos.  1  cut  it  down  to  five,  which  he  protest- 
ed against  most  vehemently,  and  soon  after  I  found  that  one 
of  my  attaches  had  got  a  better  one  made  for  three! 

Another  day  1  was  trying  horses,  and  two  or  three,  likely 
animals  enough,  were  brought.  I  chose  a  bay,  about  fourteen 
hands,  rising  six  years,  with  a  good  head,  neck,  and  fore  quar- 
ters, but  rather  falling  off  behind,  and  with  hoofs  somewhat 
contracted  for  the  size  of  the  animal.  A  walk,  an  amble,  and 
a  canter  I  got  out  of  him,  but  nothing  deserving  the  name  of 
a  trot.  As  I  have  said, it  being  considered  vulgar  in  Japan  to 
put  your  horse  out  of  a  walking  pace,  their  animals  are  never 
lunged  or  taught  to  step  out.  They  are  all  entire  horses; 
there  are  no  geldings,  and  the  mares  seem  only  kept  for  breed- 
ing. I  gave  thirty-five  kobangs,  about  £10 — not  an  exorbitant 
price  in  itself,  but  to  a  Japanese  it  would  certainly  have  been 
one  half  less,  and,  indeed,  a  cob  pony,  of  the  same  character, 
could  be  purchased  in  many  parts  of  England  for  that  sum. 
My  groom,  however,  a  fine  stalwart  man,  who  belonged  for- 
merly to  a  Governor  of  Simoda,  was  very  urgent  in  his  recom- 
mendation to  buy,  impatient  to  be  installed  in  his  vocation,  and 
possibly  had  his  own  interest  in  the  bargain ;  but  as  he  seem- 


160  THREE  YEAKS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  VIII. 

ed  an  able-bodied,  serviceable  fellow,  and  had  moreover  been 
taught  by  the  Americans  how  to  shoe  a  horse,  instead  of  the 
device  of  muffling  their  feet  in  straw  slippers,  I  closed  the  bar- 
gain, as  much  to  secure  the  man  as  the  horse.  A  Japanese 
stable,  built  under  his  superintendence,  presented  some  striking 
features  of  contrast  with  ours.  In  the  first  place,  the  horse's 
head  was  where  his  tail  would  be  in  an  English  stable,  that  is, 
facing  the  entrance.  It  certainly  seems  a  much  more  rational 
thing  to  be  able  to  go  up  to  your  horse's  head,  when  he  has  an 
opportunity  of  recognizing  you,  rather  than  to  his  heels,  with  a 
preliminary  chance  of  a  kick  and  a  broken  leg.  Then  they 
have  no  fixed  mangers,  but  hang  their  food  from  the  roof  in  a 
bucket.  When  not  eating,  however,  their  head  is  often  tied 
up  rather  above  the  level  of  the  neck,  without  any  freedom  or 
power  of  moving  from  right  to  left,  merely  to  keep  them  quiet, 
which  is  great  cruelty,  and  all  to  save  a  lazy  groom  the  trouble 
of  cleaning  them  if  they  lie  down. 

And  so  flitted  and  passed  away  the  first  month  of  our  resi- 
dence in  Yeddo. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

The  Japanese  Language. — First  Lessons  in  Grammar  and  Speaking. 

Our  want  of  all  knowledge  of  the  Japanese  language  was 
the  first  great  barrier  to  any  satisfactory  progress  in  our  rela- 
tions with  the  country ;  and  as  two  young  student  interpret- 
ers had  been  attached  to  the  Mission,  my  first  care  was  to  set 
them  to  work,  and  to  see  if  I  myself  could  aid  by  spelling  out 
something  as  to  the  consti'uction  of  the  language.  With  the 
aid  of  the  Japanese  official  attached  to  the  Legation  as  an  In- 
terpreter, who  I  found  had  some  smattering  of  Dutch  gram- 
mar, I  began  without  loss  of  time. 

I  probably  should  have  hesitated  had  I  foreseen  all  the  labor 
it  would  entail,  even  to  produce  the  most  elementary  work,  but 
patience  and  perseverance  will  overcome  many  difficulties,  and 
so  it  was  finished  and  printed  at  last.  I  preserved  some  notes 
of  my  earlier  effTorts,  when,  in  the  mornings,  we  were  all  col- 
lected round  the  table,  and  our  unfortunate  teacher  in  the 
midst  (with  a  Yakonin  and  an  Ometsky  in  the  background,  to 
see  we  hatched  no  treason  against  the  State),  bewildered  and 
sore  distraught,  under  a  searching  cross-fire  of  questions  for 
equivalents  to  English  parts  of  speech.     A  quiet,  much-en- 


Chap.  VIII.]  THE  JAPANESE  LANGUAGE.  161 

daring  man  was  Matabe,  but  he  sometimes  used  to  put  his 
head  on  one  side,  while  his  fingers  sought  in  vain  to  stimulate 
the  brain  beneath,  to  furnish  the  required  ideas  by  gentle  and 
continual  friction  over  the  shaven  crown,  and  look  the  very 
picture  of  bewilderment  and  misery! 

No  general  re.adei-  will  ever  look  at  the  grammar,  with  its 
mi.xture  of  fact  and  speculation,  which  was  the  final  result  of 
this  long  torture,  renewed  day  after  day  for  eighteen  months. 
And  yet  there  is  much  to  interest  even  the  most  casual  student 
in  the  characteristics  of  every  language,  and  as  the  Japanese 
has  been  hitherto  a  sealed  book  to  Europeans,  I  will  try  to  give 
some  account  of  the  sort  of  discoveries  wrung  out  of  poor  Ma- 
tabe  on  these  long  summer  mornings,  and  any  other  victims  I 
succeeded  in  getting  under  the  same  harrows.  Many  of  these 
were  interesting,  as  throwing  some  reflected  light  on  the  hab- 
its of  thought  and  action  of  the  race  by  whom  it  was  framed, 
and  the  people  to  whose  daily  wants  it  had  been  moulded. 

If  books  are  the  transcripts  of  national  taste,  as  has  been 
not  unaptly  said,  much  more  may  a  language  be  considered  a 
true  mirror  of  the  national  character.  Of  especial  interest  are 
the  questions  involved  in  the  use  of  a  borrowed  hieroglyphic 
language  in  Japan,  and  the  spontaneous  adoption  at  a  later 
period  of  a  phonetic  system,  without  the  latter  displacing  the 
former.  The  Japanese  are  the  only  nation,  as  I  observed  in 
the  preface  to  the  grammar,  who,  so  far  as  is  known,  ever  frank- 
ly adopted  as  their  own,  and  at  one  eflfort,  a  language  and  a 
literature,  together  with  a  whole  system  of  morals  and  ethics, 
from  a  neighboring  people  (in  many  respects  essentially  difiei*- 
ent),  without  any  pressure  from  conquest,  and  while  in  posses- 
sion of  a  civilization  of  rival  pretensions,  a  marked  nationality, 
and  a  strongly  developed  spirit  of  independence.  Yet  such 
seems  to  have  been  the  fact  beyond  a  doubt.  Although  the 
relations  of  China  with  Japan  have  often  been  hostile,  and  no 
approach  to  fusion  has  ever  taken  place  between  the  two  na- 
tions, the  Japanese  did  adopt,  at  some  distant  period  now  un- 
known, the  system  of  writing  of  the  Chinese.  And  although 
the  Japanese  invented  for  themselves  long  subsequently  a  sys- 
tem of  phonetic  symbols,  consisting  of  a  syllabary  or  alphabet 
of  forty-seven  letters,  which,  with  the  addition  of  certain  ac- 
cents, sufiices  to  convey  all  the  sounds  in  the  language,  and 
notwithstanding  it  has  been  in  general  use  now  some  eight 
centuries,  they  have  not  relinquished  the  hieroglyphic  written 
language  adopted  from  the  Chinese.  So  the  two  languages 
and  systems  of  writing  exist  side  by  side  to  this  day. 

Indeed,  they  seem  fond  of  duplicates  in  all  things.     Some* 


162  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  VIII. 

thii]g  of  a  dual  principle  we  know  enters  into  man's  organiza- 
tion and  pervades  all  nature,  but  in  the  Japanese  idiosyncrasy 
this  seems  to  find  a  more  elaborate  development  than  else- 
where. If  it  be  true,  as  a  learned  physician  has  maintained,* 
that  we  all  have  two  perfect  brains  inclosed  in  our  skulls,  as 
we  liave  two  eyes  and  two  ears  on  the  outside,  each  cai)able 
of  performing  all  the  functions  of  both  combined,  and  even  ca- 
pable of  carrying  on  independent  trains  of  thought  simultane- 
ously, it  would  seem  the  Japanese  duality  of  brains  has  been 
productive  of  all  sorts  of  binary  combinations  and  devices  run- 
ning through  and  duplicating,  as  it  were,  all  existence,  politi- 
cal, social,  and  intellectual.  There  is  no  dealing  with  a  single 
agent  in  Japan — from  the  sovereign  to  the  postman,  they  all 
run  in  couples.  You  ask  for  your  interpreter,  and  finding  him 
long  in  coming,  you  demand  the  reason,  and  receive  for  con- 
clusive answer  that  '  he  could  not  come  without  his  shadow !' 
If  the  objection  strikes  you  as  singular  or  novel,  it  is  explained 
that  his  shadow  is  an  '  otnetsky^  literally,  the  '  eye  that  sees 
through;'  in  plain  English,  a  spy,  without  whom  it  is  not  safe 
for  him  to  enter  on  the  performance  of  his  functions,  for  the 
'  ometsky '  is  supposed  to  be  a  witness  to  the  loyalty  of  his 
action. 

We  may  take  as  a  farther  illustration  of  the  peculiarities  of 
Japanese  character  the  grammatical  fact  that  their  nouns  have 
no  genders.  Neither  have  the  Japanese,  properly  speaking, 
any  definite  article. 

The  absence  of  genders  to  their  nouns,  and  of  personal  pro- 
nouns to  express  any  difierence  between  he,  she,  and  it,  notice- 
able in  their  grammar,  seems  to  be  carried  into  practice  oddly 
enough  in  their  custom  of  public  baths  for  both  sexes,  and  in 
their  daily  life  in  other  ways.  Whether  so  strange  a  reversal 
of  all  our  ideas  of  propriety  is  attended  in  Japan  with  any  of 
the  consequences  that  would  unavoidably  attach  in  Europe  to 
such  habits,  we  are  not  yet,  perhaps,  sufficiently  conversant 
with  the  people  or  their  social  life  to  say  with  confidence. 
What  we  do  know  certainly  does  not  justify  our  jumping  to 
a  condemnatory  conclusion.  It  is  very  difficult  to  form  an 
opinion  of  the  morality  of  one  people  by  reference  to  the  man- 
ners and  standard  of  another.  The  Turks  think  it  a  reproach 
for  women  to  be  seen  out  of  their  harems ;  and  even  the  lower 
classes  regard  the  unveiling  of  the  face  as  a  shameless  and  in- 
decent act,  associating  with  it  corresponding  ideas  of  immo- 
rality. Singularly  enough,  we  seem  to  have  some  traces  of  this 
conception  in  our  own  vernacular,  by  the  term  '  barefaced^ 
*  Dr.  Wigan  on  the  Duality  of  the  Brain. 


Chap.  VIII.]  PERSONAL  PRONOUNS.  16,^ 

when  we  wish  to  express  a  similar  reproach  of  shamelessness. 
An  Arab  woman  wears  a  single  vest  oj)en  to  the  waist,  but 
carefully  shrouds  her  face  from  view.  The  Chinese,  on  the 
other  side  of  Asia,  expose  the  face  without  reserve,  and  paint 
it  too,  to  be  admired,  but  are  scrupulous  in  covering  the  neck 
as  high  as  the  throat,  while  they  very  certainly  regai-d  the  low 
dress  of  European  ladies,  their  dancing  in  public  ^ith  their 
male  acquaintances,  and,  indeed,  our  whole  system  of  dress  and 
social  intercourse,  as  the  most  shocking  departure  from  all  the 
rules  of  propriety  and  decency  which  the  imagination  of  man 
or  woman  could  invent ! 

Reverting  to  their  grammar,  we  find  in  respect  to  the  per- 
sonal pronouns  another  interesting  fact,  namely,  that,  although 
not  wholly  wanting,  they  are  rarely  used.  Nouns,  with  various 
significations  of  honor  or  self-abasement,  almost  invariably  sup- 
ply their  place.  Thus  in  practice,  if  not  in  theor}'^,  they  hardly 
exist.  We  are  not  siu'prised,  therefore,  to  find  that  there  is  a 
bewildering  variety  in  the  modes  of  expressing  the  important 
word  I'm  Japanese,  and  scarcely  less  for  all  the  other  jiersons. 
TJiou,  and  he^  and  she^  with  their  plurals,  consequently  become 
fonnidable  entities,  requiring  careful  approach  and  long  study. 
I  gave  a  table  of  six  or  seven  forms  for  each,  as  the  lowest 
number  for  the  student  to  begin  with  ;  warning  all  comers,  at 
the  same  time,  that  there  are  still  many  additional  forms  to  be 
acquired,  and  that  no  more  grievous  solecism  in  manners  can 
be  committed  among  the  Japanese  than  wrongly  to  apply  ei- 
ther the  terms  of  due  humility  in  the  speaker  designating  him- 
self, or  of  honor  to  the  person  addressed,  each  variation  in 
rank,  age,  and  sex  demanding  the  use  of  some  different  form 
of  speech  !  This  is  rather  startling  intelligeiu-e  to  beginners; 
but  if  such  be  the  fact,  it  is  better  to  know  the  whole  truth  at 
once  than  to  go  blundering  on  in  the  dark.  Thus,  to  take  an 
example  of  the  ingenuity  exercised  by  the  Japanese  in  the  in- 
vention of  terms  of  honor  or  abasement  which  supply  the  place 
of  personal  pronouns — for  the  most  part  pure  circumlocutions 
and  paraphrases  to  avoid  a  personal  appellative  or  designating 
pronoun — we  find  one  of  the  terms  for  I^  speaking  humbly  as 
to  a  superior,  is  Temaie^  literally,  'the  person  who  is  before 
your  hand.'  Watakooshi,  another  term  for  Z,  means,  literally, 
'something  private,'  an  egoism,  something  pertaining  to  theZ 
Again,  Anatta,  ''Thmc^  is  a  word  literally  signifying  'your 
side.'  So,  in  speaking  of  ladies  or  Avomen,  onago  domo  may 
be  used  correctly,  to  designate  those  of  a  man's  own  house- 
hold, but  if  applied  to  any  other,  the  expression  would  be  a 
gross  af[ront,  domo  being  the  plural  adjunct  implying  humili. 


164  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap-VIII. 

ty  and  relative  lowncss  of  rank,  while  07iago,  the  term  for  a 
lady  or  female,  is  not  sufficiently  honorific  to  be  used  in  speak- 
ing of  others.  Both  have,  consequently,  to  be  changed ;  the 
affix  gata  must  then  be  used  for  the  plural,  and  Jochou  for 
the  noun ;  whereas,  among  women  and  children,  and  speaking 
of  each  other,  the  terminal  would  be  tatsi  or  tatchi^  and  then 
the  phrase  might  run  Onago  tatchi  or  Jochou-gata,,  and  if  it 
was  meant  to  designate  young  ladies,  Musoome  tatchi. 

We  see  in  all  this,  first,  a  strange  proneness  to  self-abase- 
ment, a  certain  absence  of  individualism  and  self-assertion, 
which,  on  the  other  hand,  is  very  much  opposed  to  some  of 
their  national  characteristics.  A  Japanese  is  proud  of  his  race 
and  nation,  stands  much  on  his  personal  dignity,  and  is  very 
sensitive  to  any  indignity  or  affront  put  upon  him  by  the  neg- 
lect or  refusal  to  render  all  that  custom  and  etiquette  prescribe. 
That  they  should  be  a  ceremonious  and  punctilious  people  fol- 
lows as  a  matter  of  course,  for  just  in  proportion  as  they  are  con- 
scious of  sensitiveness  on  these  points,  is  their  scrupulousness 
in  avoiding  any  provocation  or  ground  of  offense  to  others. 
Indeed,  to  such  a  pitch  do  they  carry  this,  that  no  equestrian 
statue  is  permitted — so  at  least  they  say  themselves — because 
it  would  wound  the  dignity  of  any  one  entitled  to  marks  of  re- 
spect to  pass  in  the  street,  or  to  meet  in  a  house,  a  person  rid- 
ing, even  in  bronze,  ichile  the  other  was  on  foot!  Thus  none 
but  officers,  and  not  all  these,  are  allowed  to  ride ;  and  if  a 
Daimio  (or  Prince)  is  met,  they  must  dismount  until  he  passes. 
Nor  are  these  unimportant  distinctions,  for  they  have  much  to 
do  with  the  hostility  of  all  the  ruling  classes  to  foreigners  pass- 
ing along  their  roads  and  streets,  especially  on  horseback ;  be- 
cause, in  the  first  place,  it  is,  according  to  Japanese  etiquette, 
an  assumption  of  superiority,  and,  in  the  next  place,  no  Daimio, 
however  high,  can  compel  a  foreigner  to  dismount  and  do  him 
obeisance.  Hence  they  tried  to  close  the  road  to  foreigners 
between  Yeddo  and  the  port  of  Kanagawa,  and  various  un- 
pleasant rencounters  have  taken  place,  when  members  of  the  dif- 
ferent Legations  have  had  to  pass  a  Japanese  noble  with  a  ret- 
inue* of  retainers.     Indeed,  in  the  history  of  the  edicts  expel- 

*  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  one,  and  not  the  least  important  or  influen- 
tial, of  the  many  causes  of  hostility  in  the  privileged  classes,  lies  here.  The 
lowly  obeisance  of  the  unprivileged  (consisting  of  all  the  mass  of  the  popula- 
tion) is  at  once  flattering  to  their  pride  and  essential  to  their  supremacy. 
Whatever  calls  either  the  one  or  the  other  in  question  must  be  not  only  a 
strong  incitement  to  hostile  feeling,  but  a  source  of  danger ;  for  the  public 
demonstration  of  independence  ir  the  foreigner  aims  a  fatal  blow  at  both. 
The  Japanese  merchant  or  shopkeeper,  who  bends  his  head  to  the  dust  when 
a  two-sworded  official  passes,  rises  with  a  feeling  of  shame  and  self-abase* 


Chap.  VIII. J    INDIVIDUALITY.— SPOKEN  LANGUAGE.  165 

ling  all  foreigners  and  exterminating  all  Christian  converts  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  one  of  the  first  provocations  is  said 
to  have  arisen  from  such  an  incident,  a  Portuguese  Bishop 
meeting  a  high  officer  of  the  Tycoon,  and  *  not  rendering  the 
usual  obeisance,'  in  other  words,  getting  out  of  the  Norimon, 
and  on  his  knees  bowing  his  head  to  the  dust !  This  is  often 
quoted  as  an  evidence  of  the  pride  and  arrogance  of  the  priests, 
but  very  absurdly. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  there  is  a  great  fund  of  preten- 
sion at  the  bottom  of  all  these  periphrases  of  self-abasement, 
which  seem  only  so  punctiliously  adhered  to,  that  each  may  be 
sure  in  turn  of  having  the  like  rendered  back  to  him  with  in- 
terest, in  terms  of  honor  and  exaltation  when  addressed  by  oth- 
ers. It  is  a  common  observation  that  the  most  punctilious  and 
ceremonious  people,  nations  or  individuals,  are  also  the  proud- 
est and  most  tenacious  of  rank  and  observance  in  their  own 
case.  So,  although  grammarians  may  find  difficulty  in  disin- 
terring and  separating  from  these  euphuisms  and  circumlocu- 
tions distinctive  personal  pronouns,  yet  I  hesitate  to  join  in  the 
conclusion,  somewhat  rashly  drawn  perhaps,  that  there  is  no 
individual  liberty  among  the  Japanese,  and  that  their  laws,  and 
the  mixed  feudal  and  despotic  nature  of  their  government,  im- 
peratively require  the  utter  renunciation  of  all  individuality 
and  rights  attaching  to  it.  Something  of  this  may  be  true, 
without  by  any  means  justifying  the  more  sweeping  deduction. 

The  spoken  language,  except  in  these  particulars,  and  in  the 
complicated  construction  of  their  verbs,  presents  no  serious 
difficulties  to  the  learner.  In  pronunciation,  none^  in  compari- 
son with  the  Chinese ;  for  the  system  of  intonation,  in  eight 
modulations,  any  one  of  which  may  entirely  alter  the  sense,  is 
unknown  in  Japan.  Nor  are  there  any  guttural  or  difficult 
sounds,  if  we  except  the  semi-liquid  sound  given  to  the  r ;  nei- 
ther I  nor  r,  but  something  between  both.  The  Malay  has 
sometimes  been  described  as  the  Italian  of  the  East ;  but  the 
Japanese,  with  all  its  soft  and  liquid  sounds,  has  still  better 
pretensions  to  be  so  considered. 

But,  once  we  come  to  the  written  language,  the  difficulties 
accumulate.     They  have  three  modes  or  systems  of  writing. 

ment  in  the  presence  of  a  foreigner  who  is  exempt.  Pride,  privileges,  and 
pKolitieal  power  are  all  involved,  therefore,  in  this  question,  vtrhich,  at  first 
sight,  ap])eai-8  only  one  of  puerile  form  or  etiquette.  Only  recently  a  fatal 
rencounter  has  taken  plare  on  the  hiph  road  between  Kanagawa  and  the  cap- 
ital, in  which  one  of  a  party  of  English  taking  a  ride  was  killed  by  the  fol- 
lowers of  some  Dnimio  whose  corte'ge  they  were  ))assing  on  horseback.  And 
it  may  truly  be  said  that  no  such  cortege  is  ever  met  by  foreigners  without 
danger  to  life. 


166  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  VIII. 

The  first  consists  in  the  use  of  the  Chinese  characters,  the  sec- 
ond and  third  in  the  two  alphabets  known  as  the  Katagana 
and  the  Hiragana.  But  this  goes  a  very  little  way  toward  ex- 
hausting the  subject.  The  Japanese  have,  unfortunately  for 
European  students,  many  different  methods  of  writing  the  Chi- 
nese characters,  and,  worse  still,  a  habit  of  mingling  all  the  dif- 
ferent modes  in  the  same  page.  Thus,  to  begin  with  the  Chi- 
nese, or  rather  the  nearest  approach  they  make  to  it,  there  are 
three  modes  of  writing  even  the  square  character.  The  first 
is  called  the  Kaisho  {kai^ '  care')  style,  and  is  only  commonly 
used  in  poetry  and  printed  books.  The  second,  the  Giosho 
{gio^  'action'  or  'going  out'),  is  the  style  of  ofiicial  letters  and 
dispatches.  The  third,  or  Sosho  (so, '  grass'  or  '  herb'),  is  for 
familiar  correspondence  between  equals.  The  difierences  are 
not  so  great  but  that  the  character  in  each  may  generally  be 
deciphered  without  much  difficulty  by  any  one  very  familiar 
with  the  first ;  although  the  difference,  in  the  Sosho,  is  some- 
times so  essential  as  to  make  them  altogether  unrecognizable. 
Nor  has  it  been  found  possible  to  ascertain  any  rules  by  which 
these  interpolations  of  different  systems  are  made.  Sometimes, 
especially  if  proper  names  are  expressed,  the  Katagana  char- 
acters are  used.  This  is  easily  understood,  as  it  is  an  attempt 
simply  to  convey  the  pronunciation  of  the  foreign  word.  But, 
as  if  to  accumulate  perplexities  and  baffle  beginners,  a  farther 
habit  prevails  of  using  the  idiographic  characters  in  a  sentence, 
sometimes  according  to  the  meaning  or  idea  to  be  conveyed, 
and  at  others  merely  as  phonetic  signs.  Lastly,  although  they 
have  adopted  the  whole  Chinese  collection  of  characters,  and 
learned  to  attach  to  each  the  ideas  belonging  to  them  in  China, 
the  construction  of  sentences  is  often  so  completely  different, 
according  to  the  genius  of  the  Japanese  language,  that  it  is 
difficult  for  a  Chinese  to  read  a  book  written  by  Japanese  in 
the  Chinese  character  so  as  fully  to  understand  every  sentence ; 
nor  can  the  Japanese  read  Chinese  books,  although  the  con- 
trary has  been  very  confidently  asserted.  This  is  not  to  assert 
that  no  Japanese  ever  acquires  the  power  of  reading  Chinese 
works,  but  simply  that  he  can  only  have  done  so  by  a  special 
study  of  Chinese  with  that  view,  which  appears  to  be  far  from 
common,  and  not  naturally  as  the  result  of  his  habitually  em- 
ploying the  Chinese  character  in  writing  Japanese.  All  Chi- 
nese is  not  unintelligible  to  Japanese,  and  vice  versa.  The 
common  signboards  are  readable  by  both,  when  the  Chinese 
character  is  used ;  so  are  many  simple  phrases.  Some  among 
their  learned  read  the  Chinese  Classics,  the  Four  Books,  etc., 
as  they  are  written ;  but  copies  are  prepared  for  more  general 


Chap.  VHT.]  THE  WRITTEN  LANGUAGE.  167 

use,  in  which  the  necessary  transpositions  ure  made,  and  it  be- 
comes a  translation  rather  than  the  original  work. 

With  these  observations,  it  will  be  clear  that  only  those  who 
have  ample  leisure,  with  years  before  them,  can  hope  to  obtain 
any  mastery  of  the  loritten  language  of  the  Japanese,  in  its  Chi- 
nese form.  Even  with  great  application  and  peculiar  aptitude, 
it  must  necessarily  be  a  very  laborious  undertaking — a  more 
arduous  task  even  than  acquiring  the  original  Chinese ;  for  in 
China  there  is  no  mixture  of  styles  of  writing  ever  admitted 
into  printed  works,  and  very  rarely  any  deviation  from  the 
stereotyped  forms  in  official  correspondence.  Still  less  are  the 
characters  used,  sometimes  for  sound  and  sometimes  for  ideas ; 
although  here  and  there,  as  every  Chinese  student  knows,  a 
character  is  occasionally  introduced,  especially  at  the  end  of  a 
sentence,  merely  for  euphony.  The  cursive  writing  of  the  Chi- 
nese is,  indeed,  a  puzzling  style,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  any  Euro- 
pean has  ever  mastered  it  ;*  but  neither  is  it  very  essential, 
since  it  is  never  employed  in  official  documents  or  printed 
works.  These  remarks,  however,  as  to  the  difficulty  of  the 
task,  neither  apply  to  the  spoken  language  nor  to  the  two  pho- 
netic systems  of  writing.  Each  of  these  seem  fairly  attainable 
by  the  same  amount  of  diligence  which  would  be  required  for 
the  acquisition  of  European  languages.  As  to  the  writing  in 
these  two  modes,  by  the  use  of  the  Katagana  and  Hiragana 
characters,  no  more  seems  necessary  than  the  knowledge  of 
two  alphabets:  the  one  perfectly  easy  and  simple,  consisting 
of  forty-seven  letters  only,  not  difficult  to  write,  and  as  clear 
and  invariable  as  the  Roman  letters ;  while  the  Hiragana  (with 
all  its  varieties  of  form,  and  farther  mutations,  by  the  charac- 
ters being  connected  and  run  into  each  other  so  as  to  form 
words)  does  not  really  present  many  more  combinations  than 
the  German  and  Gothic  texts  and  our  own  current  styles, 
which  a  few  days'  or  weeks'  study  renders  familiar.  It  is  not 
more  than  the  learning  of  the  two  hundred  and  fourteen  Chi- 
nese radicals,  or  alphabet  of  that  language,  which  is  only  the 
first  initiatory  step !  To  any  one  who  has  ever  contemplated 
the  study  of  the  Chinese  language,  the  task  of  acquiring  Japan- 
ese with  two  comparatively  simple  systems  of  phonetic  charac- 
ters will  seem  very  light,  and  he  will  be  disposed  to  regard  the 
result  without  fear  or  misgiving. 

*  Some  few  of  our  best  lin^^nists,  who  began  the  study  of  Chinese  at  a  very 
early  age,  may  decipher  or  even  write  it,  more  or  less  imperfectly,  bat  I  have 
never  seen  any  of  thorn  Rt^t  through  the  task  with  ease ;  on  the  contrarj',  it 
seems  open  to  the  same  objection  as  Jeffrey's  hand,  which  he  declared  to  be 
'  very  easy  writing.'  '  Yes,'  answered  his  correspondent,  '  but  it  is  d — d  hard 
reading  !* 


168  THREE  VEAllS  IN  Japan.  [Chap.VIII. 

That  there  are  differences  of  style  and  of  idiom  between  the 
written  and  the  spoken  language  is  undoubted,  in  this  as  in  ev- 
ery other  language,  and  there  are  varieties  of  style  according 
to  the  subject ;  but  this  does  not  constitute  three  dialects^  still 
less  so  many  languages. 

Rodriguez,  in  referring  to  the  curious  inversion  of  order 
which  exists  in  the  Japanese  construction  of  sentences  com- 
pared with  the  Chinese,  seems  more  at  home  than  in  the  con- 
struction of  the  verbs,  and  brings  out  the  contrast  very  clear- 
ly, although  it  may  be  early  for  any  European  student  to  pro- 
nounce an  independent  opinion  as  to  its  correctness.  In  Chi- 
nese, he  says,  a  sentence  ordinarily  begins  with  a  participle 
signifying  opposition,  if  there  be  any,  then  the  negatives,  and 
afterward  those  terras  which  mark  the  tense  and  mood ;  the 
verb  follows,  and,  last  of  all,  the  word  governed.  The  Japan- 
ese adopt  in  their  language  a  reversed  order :  the  case  govern- 
ed by  the  verb  comes  first ;  then  the  verb  followed  by  the  in- 
dications of  mood  and  tense,  and  the  parts  marking  opposition 
or  negation  ;  and  thus  the  sentence  finishes  where  the  Chinese 
begins.  When  the  Japanese  translate  Chinese  into  their  own 
literature,  therefore,  all  the  parts  of  a  sentence  require  often  to 
be  completely  transposed,  the  translator  passing  from  one  to 
another  in  search  of  what  generally  comes  last,  that  he  may 
place  it  first ;  the  better  to  convey,  from  the  beginning,  the  pur- 
port of  each  phrase. 

Such  were  my  first  impressions  of  this  rather  intricate  ques- 
tion ;  but  after  two  years'  study,  and  a  visit  from  Mr.  Med- 
hurst,  H.  M.'s  Consul  at  Shanghae,  whose  knowledge  of  the 
Chinese  language  is  both  large  and  practical,  some  new  light 
was  thrown  on  the  whole  subject.  Extracts  from  a  very  in- 
teresting letter,  which  at  my  desire  he  wrote  for  the  informa- 
tion of  H.  M.'s  Government,  will  be  found  in  the  Appendix.* 
I  will  merely  here  remark,  therefore,  that  it  was  clear  our  stu- 
dent interpreters  were  at  such  great  disadvantage  in  attempt- 
ing to  master  Japanese  wi'iting  icithoiit  a  previous  Tcncndedge 
of  the  Chinese  character  and  written  language^  that  I  determ- 
ined at  once  on  recommending  a  change  in  the  course  of  study 
for  those  newly  arriving,  and  urged  that  they  should  hence- 
forth remain  the  first  two  years  in  China,  and  begin  with  the 
Chinese. 

Whatever  time  might  thus  be  lost  in  the  beginning,  as  re- 
garded the  more  special  knowledge  of  the  Japanese,  written 
and  oral,  would  be  richly  compensated  by  the  certainty  and 
rapidity  of  their  progress  on  arriving  in  Japan,  after  this  pre- 
*  See  Note  C,  Appendix. 


Chap.  VIII.]  CHINESE  CHAKACTEUS.  180 

liminary  course,  with  a  power  of  readily  decipberiug  the  va- 
rious combinations  of  the  Chinese  character  in  common  use 
among  the  Japanese. 

I  found,  in  walking  along  the  road  or  through  the  streets 
with  Mr.  Medhurst,  that  the  usual  notices,  shop-boards,  etc., 
were  all  perfectly  intelligible  to  him,  simply  from  his  knowl- 
edge of  Chinese,  and  the  identity  (in  many  cases)  both  of  the 
character  and  idiom  used,  or  from  the  close  analogy  existing. 
The  tea  and  sake  shops  are  all  scribbled  over  with  the  words, 
in  Chinese  character,  signifying  '  Royal  tea,'  '  Royal  wine,' 
'Royal  resting-place;'  the  term  Royal  evidently  intended  to 
describe  superiority  or  excellence.  So  of  fruit-shops  it  was 
'  Royal  fruit' — a  great  misapplication  of  terms  as  regards  this 
last  article,  I  protest,  and  with  no  closer  adherence  to  truth 
than  advertisements  usually  exhibit.  But  often  the  very  terms 
used  in  China  for  *  fresh  fruit'  are  employed,  which  may  be 
more  veracious.  So  the  prices  are  indicated  by  Chinese  nu- 
merals. '  Drugs  are  distinguished,  us  in  China,  by  a  more  flam- 
ing and  elaborate  sign  than  usual,'  Mr.  Medhurst  remarks,  and 
are  described  by  the  same  characters  as  in  China.  Advertise- 
ments by  quacks  of  life  pills  are  identical.  So  the  notice  seen 
every  where  in  China  answering  to  ours  of '  commit  no  nui- 
sance,' he  found  here  worded  in  the  same  peculiar  phraseology 
which  the  Celestials  have  adopted.  Public  bathing-places  have 
two  doors,  side  by  side,  villi  the  notices  'men's  baths'  and 
'women's  baths,'  as  in  China;  though,  unlike  China,  the  dis- 
tinction is  disregarded  and  quite  superfluous,  as  soon  as  the 
doors  are  passed.  Over  roadway  gates  and  entrances  to  in- 
closures  which  are  public  or  imperial  property,  and  over  par- 
ticular bridges,  he  observed  the  same  characters  which  in  Chi- 
na hint '  the  necessity  of  dismounting  from  chair  or  horse  while 
treading  sacred  ground.'  He  even  observed,  one  day,  in  the 
main  street  of  Yeddo,  a  plank  stuck  up  by  the  workmen  in 
front  of  a  portion  of  road  under  repair,  with  a  notice  in  Chi- 
nese '  to  pass  by  on  the  other  side.'  These  furnished  such  an 
amount  of  cumulative  evidence  of  the  use  of  genuine  Chinese, 
even  among  the  less  educated,  as  to  prove  conclusively  the 
main  point,  namely,  the  familiar  use  of  the  Chinese  written 
language  in  common  life.  But  the  farther  we  proceeded  in 
this  inquiry  the  more  plentiful  were  the  proofs.  'In  books, 
maps,  pictures,  and  printed  publications  of  all  kinds,'  Mr.  Med- 
hurst reports, '  the  use  of  Chinese  is  quite  as  decided  and  re- 
markable.' Chine.«<e  prefaces  are  common  in  the  books;  and 
the  titles  or  headings  not  only  of  the  books,  but  of  any  illustra- 
tions they  contain,  are  invariably  in  Chinese.     The  outer  cov- 


1 70  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  VIII. 

ers  of  maps  seera  always  to  be  superscribed  in  Chinese,  and  ev- 
ery town  in  the  kingdom  appears  to  have  a  distinct  Chinese 
name,  and  it  would  seem,  as  in  China,  applied  in  i-eference  to 
the  site  or  some  other  association  connected  with  it,  the  Jap- 
anese soutid  of  the  character  having  in  some  cases  the  same 
meaning  as  the  characters  themselves  possess.  '  Yeddo,'  as  it 
is  written  by  the  Japanese,  is  '  River  Door ;'  '  Yokohama,' 
*  Cross  Shore.'  The  highway  between  the  two  towns,  'East 
Sea  Road ;'  '  Fusiyama,' '  Rich  Scholar  Peak,'  and  so  on.  Pic- 
tures, which  the  Japanese  seem  peculiarly  partial  to,  and  they 
are  to  be  met  with  of  every  description  and  price,  have  gener- 
ally Chinese  titles  attached.  The  envelopes  of  official  lettei-s 
from  the  Japanese  authorities  to  the  Legation  are  all  super- 
scribed with  the  Minister's  title  in  Chinese,  with  the  single  ex- 
ception of  the  translation  for  '  Plenipotentiary,'  a  term  intro- 
duced originally  by  Mr.  Morrison,  our  first  Chinese  Secretary 
in  China,  but  since  discarded  for  one  more  correctly  rendering 
the  title.  It  may  readily  be  conceived  with  how  much  inter- 
est I  pursued  the  subject  by  the  aid  of  Mr.  Medhurst's  large 
and  familiar  knowledge  of  the  Chinese  language.  Japanese 
boys,  we  ascertained, '  begin  first  by  learning  the  Chinese  char- 
acters, on  which  other  phonetic  letters  are  founded,  and,  in  do- 
ing so,  not  only  accustom  themselves  to  the  sight  of  the  rest 
of  the  Chinese  repertory,  more  or  less,  but  acquire  the  habit 
of  writing  them  -with  such  rapidity  and  facility,  that  event- 
ually they  learn  to  excel  even  the  Chinese  in  their  ability  to 
reduce  the  characters  from  the  square  to  the  cursive  style.' 
All  this  tended  to  prove  beyond  question  the  expediency,  if 
not  the  necessity,  of  commencing  with  Chinese  as  the  founda- 
tion. The  whole  document  will  be  found  full  of  interest,  and 
well  to  repay  perusal,  by  any  one  concerned  in  tracing  the  cu- 
rious analogy  and  connection  existing  between  the  two  lan- 
guages. 

Among  the  characteristic  peculiarities  of  the  language  is  the 
minute  distinction  and  classification  of  different  forms  of  nu- 
merals, according  to  the  object.  There  is  first  a  cardinal  series 
of  general  application,  and  then  the  ordinals,  which  are  divided 
into  nearly  as  many  series  as  there  are  classes  of  objects. 
There  is  one  class  for  all  animals,  except  the  flying  and  swim- 
ming species  and  insects.  Another  for  birds,  in  Avhich,  how- 
ever, hares  and  rabbits  are  included !  A  third  for  ships,  and 
junks,  and  boats ;  a  fourth  for  liquids  drunk  with  a  glass,  as 
water,  wine,  tea,  etc. ;  a  fifth  for  things  having  length,  as  trees, 
pens,  sticks,  masts,  beams,  radishes,  carrots,  fingers,  brooms, 
pipes,  etc.,  and  so  on  ad  in^nitum./  for  after  enumerating  ex- 


CHAP.Vni.3     IKTRICACIES  OiT  THE  LANGUAGE.  171 

amples  of  fourteen  difFevent  kinds  or  series  of  numerals,  I  gave 
it  up  in  despair,  foreseeing  tliat  ihey  would  fill  a  volume  by 
themselves.  But  this  is  a  fair  illustration  of  the  eminently 
Btraw-splitting  character  of  the  Japanese,  which  may  be  traced 
through  all  their  laws,  institutions,  and  habits  of  thought. 
When  later,  I  was  collecting  objects  for  the  Great  Exhibition, 
the  Japanese  Government  asked  me  to  suggest  something  they 
could  contribute.  Not  wishing  to  involve  them  in  expense,  for 
which  I  was  sure  they  were  not  prepared,  and  with  little  time 
to  spare  before  the  things  must  be  shipped,  I  proposed  speci- 
mens of  all  the  different  kinds  of  paper  in  common  use.  The 
next  week  I  received  a  large  box,  in  which  were  arranged  no 
less  than  sixty-seven  different  kinds,  with  a  description  of  their 
uses,  carried  out  with  such  elaborate  minuteness  of  distinctions, 
and  total  absence  of  all  reserve,  delicacy,  or  refinement,  as  to 
the  details  entered  into  regarding  the  uses  to  which  each 
should  be  applied,  that  I  was  compelled  to  revise  the  whole 
carefully  before  it  was  fit  for  publication,  and  to  exercise  a 
large  discretion  in  the  way  of  omission. 

If  the  reader  can  fancy  this  microscopic  spirit  of  analysis 
and  division  applied  to  the  verbs  in  the  construction  of  their 
language,  my  despair  may  be  conceived  when,  as  a  mere  tyro 
and  a  foreigner,  I  came  to  the  task  of  unraveling  their  intrica- 
cies, and  digging  deep  beneath  the  surface,  overlaid  with  dis- 
tinctions, for  the  simple  elements  and  the  roots.  Many  times  I 
was  more  than  half  disposed  to  give  up  the  undertaking  in  ut- 
ter hopelessness  of  ever  seeing  my  way  to  any  useful  end.  As 
for  Matab6, 1  feel  some  compunctious  twinges  of  conscience 
on  looking  back  at  the  long  hours  of  torture  I  subjected  him 
to  in  the  effort — utterly  vain  and  futile — to  extract  or  pound 
out  of  him,  re(!kless  of  the  cudgeling  his  brain  required,  any 
grammatical  element  it  might  contain,  transposed  into  the 
Dutch  forms.  I  sometimes  wonder  how  he  bore  it,  or  did  not 
sink  under  the  process.  But  I  suspect  that,  after  a  certain 
amount  of  suffering  each  day,  having  been  endowed  with  a 
Japanese  su])pleness  of  nature  and  conscience,  he  simply  gave 
over  thinking  at  all,  and  let  me  pursue  my  own  vagaries  as  I 
might,  assenting  to  every  thing,  just  as  an  unha]>py  victim  on 
the  rack  reaches  a  point  when  all  his  powers  of  endurance  or 
resistance  give  way,  and  he  re-echoes  whatever  his  tormentors 
may  choose  to  dictate  or  suggest!  I  began  to  understand  how 
the  demon  of  persecution  may  have  taken  possession  of  good 
and  pious  men  in  olden  times,  and  converted  them  into  fell 
and  heartless  inquisitors,  or  how  the  absorbed  artist  struck  a 
dagger  into  his  unfortunate  model,  who  was  tied  on  a  cross  to 


1V2  TttRfiE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  IX 

represent  the  Crucifixion,  localise  he  failed  to  yield  the  re- 
quired expression  of  agony  in  his  face ! 

Poor  Matab^ !  He  was  very  proud,  nevertheless,  when  all 
was  finished,  to  see  his  name  in  large  print,  as  having  lent  im- 
portant aid ;  but  it  is  very  certain  that  without  the  more  effi- 
cient assistance  of  the  Abbe  Girard,  a  French  missionary,  who 
had  spent  many  years  in  the  Loochoo  Islands  studying  the 
language,  I  should  never  have  accomplished  the  verbs.  I  do 
not  know  how  many  times  they  were  recast,  obliterated,  cor- 
rected, and  rewritten !  I  believe  we  all  felt  it  to  be  a  subject 
of  hearty  congratulation  when  the  word  Jinis  was  written, 
and  the  last  sheet  was  dispatched  to  the  printer.  I  leave  it  a 
legacy  to  those  who  now  are  students,  and  to  my  successors  in 
the  mission  to  correct  all  errors,  enlarge  and  improve  it,  for 
all  of  which  I  am  convinced  there  must  be  great  room.* 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Japanese  Sayings  and  Doings,  f 

A  BOOK,  entitled  '  Two  Journeys  to  Japan,'  was  about  this 
time  sent  to  me  from  England.  I,  who  was  only  gleaning  pain- 
fully and  with  difficulty  here  and  there,  as  fortune  might  aid 
me,  a  few  stray  ears  of  corn  amid  a  great  deal  of  chaff'  float- 
ing about,  read  with  something  of  envious  amazement  the 
startling  incidents  and  strange  adventures  of  this  doubly  ex- 
perienced predecessor  in  the  same  field.  It  seemed  to  me  al- 
most doubtful,  at  first,  whether  this  fortunate  spectator  and  act- 
or of  marvels  had  ever  been  in  Japan — bodily  that  is,  and  not 
in  imagination  only.     If  so,  I  felt  I  ought  to  lay  down  the  pen 

*  A  second  edition  has  since  been  prepared  for  the  press  under  much  more 
favorable  circumstances,  in  which  many  errors  and  omissions  have  been  rec- 
tified, and  a  great  deal  of  new  matter  is  added  in  the  form  of  idiomatic  dia- 
logues and  examples. 

t  The  pages  forming  the  chief  portions  of  this  chapter  were  suggested  in 
part  by  a  work  on  Japan  which  appeared  soon  after  I  took  up  my  residence 
in  the  country,  entitled  'Two  Journeys  to  Japan,  by  the  «ut]ior  of  the  New 
Eldorado,'  in  which  the  writer  recounts  such  marvelous  adventures  as  can 
seldom  have  fallen  to  the  lot  of  Paladin  or  Traveler  since  the  days  of  Men- 
dez  Pinto.  My  observations  on  things  Japanese,  passing  daily  under  my 
eyes  at  the  time,  very  different  in  kind,  found  their  way  into  the  columns  of 
a  leading  journal,  aiid  as  they  seemed  to  be  read  with  interest  at  the  time, 
and  embody  much  I  should  desire  to  find  place  in  a  more  permanent  work, 
I  have  reproduced  them  here,  with  such  modifications  only  as  fuller  knowl- 
edge naturally  prompted,  to  prevent  erroneous  impressions  being  conveyed. 


Ciup.IX.]  SANITARY  CONDITIONS.  I73 

in  despair,  for  I  had  not  even  a  hope  of  having  any  thing  half 
so  wonderful  to  relate  were  my  residence  in  Japan  to  be  pro- 
longed a  hundred  years,  which  Heaven  forbid!  Pork  and 
tough  fowls  for  meat,  and  rice  for  vegetables,  eggs  for  milk 
(butter  and  milk  being  both  unknown  luxuries  here),  with  an 
occasional  pigeon  for  entremet,  may  support  life  even  under  the 
barbarous  handling  of  a  Japanese  or  Chinese  cook — twin  broth- 
ers in  capacity  and  instinct ;  but  I  am  satisfied  there  must  be 
a  limit  somewhere  in  sanitary  conditions.  The  total  depriva- 
tion of  beef  and  mutton  must  in  time  be  a  serious  detriment  to 
the  English  constitution.  Eastern  climates,  and  long  exile 
from  all  home  associations,  we  are  brought  up  to  look  upon  as 
the  natural  incidents  of  people  cribbed  in  a  small  insular  terri- 
tory with  unbounded  dependencies  beyond  the  seas.  And  it 
is  astonishing  with  what  philosophy  we  submit  to  the  inexo- 
rable necessity  which  drives  so  many  thousands  annually  from 
the  parents'  nest ;  and  how  well  we  bear  up  under  the  loss  of 
friends  and  relations,  and  all  the  deprivations  of  social  and  in- 
tellectual intercourse!  But  have  my  readers  ever  realized 
what  it  is  for  months  or  years  never  to  taste  beef  or  mutton  ? 
If  not,  I  can  tell  them  the  most  robust  philosophy  quails  under 
such  a  prospect ;  and  I  am  sure  the  '  natural'  term  of  a  man's 
life,  occasionally  so  unfeelingly  dwelt  upon  when  a  prisoner  is 
told  he  shall  be  eternally  banished  to  some  Norfolk  Island  or 
Botany  Bay,  can  never  be  a  long  one  in  Japan  for  any  de- 
scendants of  the  Saxon !  Consequently,  for  that  is  the  true 
moral  of  my  reflections,  it  is  improbable  that  I  shall  ever  live 
long  enough  to  see  a  tithe  of  the  funny,  strange,  and  alarming 
things  which  seem  to  have  greeted  the  author's  eye  wherever 
he  turned.  Happy,  thrice  happy  traveler,  with  a  book  to  pub- 
lish! I  only  hope  he  has  not  altogether  spoiled  the  British 
public  for  the  plain  narrative  of  such  every-day  matters  as 
come  under  the  observation  of  common  mortals  seeking  clear 
insight  into  the  character  and  institutions  of  a  people  so  excep- 
tionally situated  as  the  Japanese.  Their  long  insulation,  it  is 
true,  even  prior  to  the  great  maritime  discoveries  of  the  six- 
teenth century  which  first  carried  Europeans  to  their  shores, 
but  more  especially  since  the  seventeentn,  when  every  one  of 
the  anathematized  races  of  foreigners  were  either  exterminated 
or  expelled,  save  only  the  Dutch  and  the  Chinese,  at  Nagasaki, 
has  had  the  eftect  of  placing  a  whole  nation  in  a  condition  to 
show  the  development  of  a  civilization,  sui  generis^  uninflu- 
enced, for  the  most  part,  by  any  knowledge  of  the  progress  be- 
ing made  throughout  the  world  by  contemporaneous  races  and 
nations.    But  it  is  something  like  a  geological  survey  of  a 


174  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  IX, 

country ;  here  and  there  the  underlying  strata  have  cropped 
up  and  may  be  noted  on  the  surface,  or  a  land-sUp  may  reveal 
to  the  casual  observer  some  of  the  formations ;  but  more  fre- 
quently the  leading  points  of  interest,  giving  the  key  to  the 
whole,  are  only  to  be  obtained  by  conscientious  labor,  carrying 
the  inquirer  down  through  all  the  superincumbent  layers.  So, 
in  the  study  of  national  character  and  institutions,  or  a  phase 
of  civilization,  some  indications  lie  on  the  surface  which  afford 
valuable  indicia  to  what  lies  beneath ;  but  they  are  also  very 
apt  to  mislead  the  merely  superficial  explorer.  What  I  give 
now,  therefore,  I  give  for  as  much  as  it  may  be  worth,  with  a 
distinct  reservation  for  all '  errors  and  omissions.' 

I  propose  for  the  present  to  give  only  a  few  traits  of  Jap- 
anese character  or  customs,  as  these  have  come  under  ray  own 
observation,  with  i-eference  to  the  travelers'  stories  already  be- 
fore the  public,  and  Japanese  records  professing  to  relate  with 
circumstantial  accuracy  the  more  remarkable  events  and  inci- 
dents of  the  last  few  reigns.  Some  of  these  Mr.  Titsingh,  long 
a  resident  at  Nagasaki  as  former  chief  of  the  Dutch  factory, 
with  laudable  diligence  collected  under  the  title  of '  Memoires 
et  Anecdotes  sous  la  Dynastie  Regnante  des  Djogouns  Sou- 
verains  du  Japan,'  and  much  therein  is  calculated  to  throw 
light  upon  the  habits  of  thought  and  action  which  prevail  at 
the  present  time  in  this  land  of  earthquakes !  Excuse  the  in- 
terruption, but  until  one  gets  used  to  such  things,  as  I  suppose 
every  body  does  in  time,  the  smart  shock  of  an  earthquake  has 
a  decidedly  disturbing  effect,  bodily  and  mental ! 

I  have  not  now  to  make  my  first  acquaintance  with  these 
visitors  from  the  caldrons  beneath,  yet  I  can  not  say  familiarity 
has  produced  either  of  the  two  proverbial  results — affection 
or  contempt.  As  Slender  confusedly  says  of  sweet  Anne  Page, 
'  I  feel  that  there  was  no  great  love  in  the  beginning ;'  and  it 
has  certainly  pleased  Heaven  to  '  decrease  it  upon  better  ac- 
quaintance.' 

In  truth,  no  familiarity  can  make  one  like  them  ;  for  there  is 
this  peculiar  aggravation  attending  volcanic  operations  and 
their  eldest  progeny  Earthquakes,  that  while  the  solid  earth, 
associated  in  the  mind  with  all  faith  in  the  stability  of  things 
sublunary,  vibrates  and  heaves  under  your  feet,  it  is  impossible 
to  form  any  conception  or  the  remotest  guess  when  it  will 
cease,  how  far  it  will  go,  or  when  and  how  often  it  will  recom- 
mence. The  state  of  doubt  and  suspense  into  which  one  is 
unavoidably  thrown  is,  perhaps,  the  least  agreeable  of  the  ac- 
companiments of  earthquakes.  But  the  resident  in  Japan  must 
needs  be  resigned  to  this  also,  for  they  occur  with  such  fre- 


Chap.  IX.]  GREAT  EARTHQUAKE  OF  1783.  175 

quency,  the  ever-smoking  and  heaving  volcanoes  being  in  full 
blast  throughout  the  land,  that  the  normal  state  of  the  coun- 
try, physically  considered,  may  be  described  as  one  of  chronic 
convulsion,  the  quiescent  state  being  an  exception,  a  mere  in- 
termittence  in  this  tertian  or  quartan  ague  fit,  that  takes  the 
four  corners  of  a  house  and  shakes  it  as  a  strong  man  shakes  a 
puny  foe  before  he  flings  him  to  the  earth  crushed  and  man- 
gled !  We  had  one  or  two  in  every  week  after  my  arrival,  not 
violent  enough  to  throw  houses  down,  but  quite  sufficiently 
smart  and  long  in  duration  to  wake  any  one  out  of  the  sound- 
est sleep,  with  a  perfectly  indescribable  sense  of  insecurity ; 
for  the  most  frightful  earthquake  and  volcanic  eruption  on  rec- 
ord in  Japan,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  began  by  many  prelim- 
inary shocks  of  no  great  intensity,  in  this  same  district  of  Yed- 
do,  in  1783,  and  seems  to  have  exceeded  in  its  horrors  and  wide 
destruction  the  earthquake  of  Lisbon  at  the  other  end  of  the 
chain.  The  accounts  state  that  at  eight  o'clock  on  the  morn- 
ing of  July  27  of  that  year,  a  great  wind  got  up,  accompanied 
by  subterranean  mutterings  of  thunder,  which  continued  aug- 
menting from  day  to  day,  in  seeming  menace  of  some  frightful 
catastrophe,  until  August  1.  On  that  day  an  earthquake,  with 
loud  thunders,  shook  all  the  houses  to  their  foundations,  the 
intensity  of  the  shocks  each  moment  increasing  until  the  sum- 
mit of  the  mountain  was  rent  open,  and  fire  and  flame  appear- 
ed, followed  by  such  an  avalanche  of  fand  and  stones,  tossed 
high  into  the  air,  and  carried  to  incredible  distances,  that  the 
darkness  of  night  came  on,  the  only  light  being  the  lurid  glare 
of  burning  lava  and  devastating  flames.  Vast  chasms  opened 
before  the  afirighted  inhabitants  in  their  flight,  into  which 
thousands,  in  the  darkness  and  panic,  urged  on  by  the  streams 
of  fire  and  showers  of  stone  and  ashes,  are  said  to  have  been 
precipitated.  The  shocks  did  not  entirely  cease  until  the 
twelfth  day,  and  were  felt  over  a  space  of  thirty  leagues. 
Twenty-seven  towns  and  villages  were  destroyed ;  the  rivers, 
boiling  and  overflowing,  inundated  the  whole  country,  to  com- 
plete the  work  of  destruction.  I  think  it  must  be  admitted 
that  there  is  enough  in  this  account,  drawn  from  Japanese 
sources  and  the  accoimts  of  eyewitnesses,  to  make  men  '  not  to 
the  manner  born'  feel  any  tning  but  reconciled  to  the  daily 
chance  of  a  repetition,  especially  as  the  same  volcanic  centre 
has  given,  as  late  as  1 854,  a  signal  proof  of  undiminished  vigor. 
At  Simoda,  only  lower  down  in  the  bay,  there  was  at  that  time 
such  a  violent  commotion  of  both  earth  and  sea  that  the  whole 
town  was  reduced  to  ruins,  and  large  portions  were  swallowed 
up  by  the  sea  in  the  back  sweep  of  three  huge  waves,  which  in 


1^6  MREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  fCHA?.  IX. 

succession  rose  over  the  highest  trees,  leaving  the  bay  nearly 
empty.  Large  junks  and  boats  were  flung  some  distance  in- 
land, and  the  Russian  frigate  '  Diana,'  which  had  escaped  Ad- 
miral Stirling  the  year  before,  now  escaped  a  far  greater  dan- 
ger almost  miraculously.  She  is  described  as  spinning  round 
and  round  at  her  anchors,  the  men  being  thrown  down,  and 
many  of  the  guns  shot  across  the  decks,  killing  and  wounding 
the  crew,  until  she  was  left  all  but  a  total  wreck.  The  harbor 
■was  scoured  out  to  its  granite  foundations,  and  has  never  since 
afforded  good  holding-ground  for  ships  to  anchor  in. 

So  one  evening,  when  the  air  was  sultry  and  a  sobbing  wind 
swept  suddenly  through  the  pine-trees  with  menace  of  a  storm, 
an  uneasy  feeling  seemed  to  take  possession  of  every  one.  And 
when  the  lightning  and  the  rain  followed  quick,  with  some- 
thing altogether  peculiar  in  the  roll  of  thunder — a  long,  even, 
monotonous  peal,  neither  seeming  to  approach  nor  recede,  nei- 
ther diminuendo  nor  crescendo  to  a  final  crash,  but  ceasing 
just  as  it  began — the  first  thought  in  every  mind  was,  I  am 
sure, '  An  earthquake !'  However,  no  shock  was  felt,  so  the 
dinner  continued  uninterrupted.  But  some  time  after,  with 
just  such  a  storm,  and  with  a  deluge  of  rain,  we  had  the  se- 
verest shock  I  have  yet  felt.  Some  men  were  thrown  down, 
others  rushed  at  a  bound  from  the  house  into  the  open  space 
regardless  of  rain,  while  every  pillar  and  beam  creaked  and 
shook.  The  whole  house  and  earth  beneath  appeared  to  sway 
to  and  fro  horizontally,  seized  with  a  violent  shivering-fit,  which, 
if  it  had  only  lasted  another  minute,  I  think,  would  have  be- 
come contagious. 

The  Japanese,  it  was  said,  found  the  magnet  lose  its  power 
during  an  earthquake,  if  not  some  time  before.  If  this  were  true, 
it  would  have  been  a  curious  fact,  and  one  well  worthy  of  far- 
ther investigation.  With  a  good  horse-shoe  magnet  suspended, 
and  a  gong  or  a  copper  basin  beneath,  one  might  improvise  an 
earthquake  alarm,  and  if  it  only  gave  a  few  seconds'  notice,  it 
might  at  least  save  people  from  being  buried  beneath  the  ruins 
of  their  own  houses.  In  a  scientific  point  of  view,  however, 
independent  of  any  immediate  practical  application,  it  was  an 
object  of  interest.  But  a  little  inquiry  and  experiment  seemed 
to  dissipate  all  hopes  of  a  valuable  discovery.  The  truth  ap- 
peared to  be  that  the  American  Minister  had  read,  in  some  of 
the  veracious  correspondence  from  Japan  which  appeai*ed  in 
the  New  York  papers,  a  round  assertion  that  such  a  fact  was 
well  known  to  the  Japanese.  And  these,  being  referred  to, 
with  the  characteristic  vanity  and  mendacity  of  Yaconins,  had 


Chap.  IX.]  INQUIRIES  ABOUT  JAPAN.  177 

no  scruple  in  appropriating  the  honor  thus  thrust  upon  their 
country  of  a  great  scientific  discovery.* 

But  let  us  turn  to  other  matters ;  for,  spite  of  earthquakes, 
and  sudden  burial  under  ruins,  or  slow  roasting  by  the  spread 
of  fires  while  pinioned  to  the  earth,  fire  being  almost  the  sure 
sequent  of  a  shock  strong  enough  to  throw  houses  down,  there 
is  eating  and  drinking,  marrying  and  giving  in  marriage  in 
Yeddo, '  as  in  the  days  that  were  before  the  flood,'  and  just  as 
continuously  and  joyously  as  though  Japan  had  its  foundations 
immovably  fixed  m  the  centre  of  the  earth  instead  of  on  these 
treacherous  and  shifting  ribs  of  granite,  which  case  a  mighty- 
sea  of  molten  lava  and  fire ! 

I  received  about  this  time  a  letter  full  of  inquiries  about  Ja- 
pan, its  climate,  productions,  people,  etc.,  suggested  mainly,  it 
would  appear,  by  a  compilation  of  a  Mr.  Andrew  Steinmetz, 
giving  in  a  popular  form  the  gleanings  from  Kcempfer,  Thun- 
berg,  and  later  residents  or  travelers.  I  could  not  help  being 
amused  at  the  evidence  these  inquiries  furnish  of  the  absurd 
mixture  of  fact  and  supposition  in  nearly  all  that  is  attributed 
to  the  Japanese.  My  correspondent  headed  her  sheet '  Facta 
asserted  by  Andrew  Steinmetz,  of  the  Middle  Temple,'  with  a 
general  query, '  Are  any  of  these  true  ?'  a  doubt  apparently 
having  crossed  her  mind  as  soon  as  she  had  written  the  word 
'■facta.^  And  she  was  right,  for  useful  facts  are  hard  to  come 
by  in  a  country  like  this,  and  very  apt  to  be  misinterpreted 
when  obtained. 

But  to  the  facts.  '  Fogs,  and  all  sorts  of  rain,  and  bad  weath- 
er abundant;  cold  winds  from  the  mountains  extreme;  not- 
withstanding, a  most  healthy  country  to  live  in;  air  very  salu- 
brious ;  soil  very  fertile ;  fruits  most  delicious.' 

We  were  near  the  end  of  August,  and  there  had  been,  for 
the  week  or  two  preceding,  something  very  like  English  autumn 
weather,  the  sun  brighter  and  a  little  hotter,  some  80°  to  84° 
in  the  shade,  the  evenings  generally  cool  and  pleasant,  but  at 
frequent  intervals  a  night  or  a  day  of  heavy  rain.  Occasion- 
ally, however,  when  I  awoke,  there  would  be  a  loud  roaring  of 
wind  among  the  forest  trees  and  a  deluge  of  falling  rain,  the 
two  together  making  a  very  dismal  sort  of  music,  by  no  means 
conducive  to  cheerfulness  or  to  early  rising.  Beautiful  breezy 
mornings,  slightly  overcast,  often  begin  the  day,  which  is  then 
pretty  sure  to  be  succeeded  by  a  rainy  afternoon ;  but  before 
the  rain  nothing  can  be  more  delightful  or  more  like  a  fine  au- 

*  Some  investigations  have  recently  tnken  place,  on  the  supposition  that  a 
onnncctiun  may  be  traced  between  the  magnetic  state  of  the  earth  or  the  at- 
mosphere and  the  shucks  of  earthquakes  at  any  given  spot. 

H2 


178  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  IX. 

tumn  morning  in  England.  The  sun,  during  the  hottest  days 
of  summer,  is  very  much  less  intense  in  its  heat  than  on  the 
neighboring  coast  of  China.  The  thermometer,  in  the  shade, 
ranges  from  70°  to  85°,  and  averages  80°  between  the  morning 
and  the  evening,  while  it  is  sometimes  below  70°  at  niglit. 
This  is  a  climate,  therefore,  that  does  not  make  mere  existence 
a  burden  and  all  life  an  effort,  as  it  often  becomes  both  in  India 
and  China.  As  to  its  '  salubrity,  freedom  of  the  people  from 
disease  (especially  skin  diseases,  on  account  of  the  sea-weed 
eaten),  undoubted  longevity,'  and  other '  facts'  very  confidently 
asserted,  I  should  not  have  ventured,  in  those  early  days,  to 
give  a  decided  opinion.  But  longer  experience  makes  me  bold, 
and  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  they  are,  upon  the 
whole,  a  cleanly  people,  wash  often,  sa7is  peur  et  sans  reproche^ 
wear  little  clothing,  live  in  houses  open  to  the  air,  and  look  on 
wide  and  well-ventilated  streets,  where  nothing  offensive  is  al- 
lowed to  rest.  In  all  these  things  the  Japanese  have  greatly 
the  advantage  over  other  Eastern  races,  and  notably  over  the 
Chinese,  whose  streets  are  an  abomination  to  any  one  possess- 
ing eyes  to  see  or  a  nose  to  smell  with.  All  failed,  however,  to 
give  them  immunity  from  the  devastating  cholera,  which  the 
United  States'  frigate  Mississippi  is  said,  I  believe  correctly, 
to  have  brought  over — a  first  fatal  fruit  of  the  treaty  and  their 
extended  relations  with  foreigners !  It  swept  many  thousands 
from  their  cities ;  they  say  200,000  from  Yeddo  alone.  And 
one  can  not  be  surprised  that  in  the  minds  of  the  people  it  was 
looked  upon  as  associated  with  the  strangers,  and  a  visitation 
wholly  due  to  their  newly-established  relations.  I  hear,  how- 
ever, that  it  was  not  a  first  visitation,  and  that  they  had  it  in 
1818;  but  as  far  as  mere  human  agency  was  concerned,  this 
later  visitation  might  be  traced  to  that  source,  and  of  course  it 
did  not  tend  to  make  either  the  treaties  or  the  foreigners  ob- 
jects of  popular  favor.  This  might  be  one  of  the  latent  causes 
of  dislike  and  distrust  which  we  had  to  struggle  against,  with 
but  doubtful  success.  Some  officials  very  anxiously  questioned 
me  as  to  the  mode  in  which  cholera  was  propagated  or  trans- 
mitted from  one  country  to  another,  what  were  the  best  medi- 
cines and  means  of  stopping  its  ravages,  etc.  They  evidently 
regarded  the  possibility  of  its  reappearance  with  considerable 
alarm ;  and,  indeed,  not  without  reason,  since  by  last  accounts 
it  was  then  already  at  Nagasaki,  though  not  to  a  very  great  ex- 
tent. These  officials  said  the  Japanese  attributed  its  first  ap' 
pearance  among  them  to  the  introduction  last  year  of  the  water- 
melons, also  a  gift  of  the  Americans,  though  I  should  doubt 
both  facts.     Watermelons,  like  potatoes,  the  first  introduction 


Chap.  IX.]  SKIN  DISEASES.— TATTOOING.  1^9 

of  which  has  also  been  attributed  to  Commodore  Perry,  if  not 
indigenous,  have  at  least  been  many  generations  in  the  country, 
and  largely  cultivated.  Their  inquiries,  no  doubt,  had  refer- 
ence to  our  quarantine  laws,  the  adoption  of  which  they  seemed 
to  be  contemplating. 

But  as  to  general  conditions  of  salubrity  Japan  certainly 
appears  to  be  greatly  favored.  What  its  influence  may  be  in 
regard  to  frequency  of  disease  or  longevity  I  can  not  say  far- 
ther than  this,  that  there  is  not  the  exemption  from  skin  dis- 
eases which  has  been  asserted.  On  the  contrary,  among  the 
working  classes  various  forms  of  cutaneous  eruptions  are  com- 
mon— perhaps  to  be  accounted  for  by  their  habit  of  washing 
together  in  crowds.  Every  third  man  seems,  for  some  cause 
or  other,  to  have  had  the  tnoxa  very  frequently  applied,  leav- 
ing scars  down  the  whole  length  of  the  spine.  Itch,  too,  is  a 
common  malady — common  to  a  distressing  degree,  and  invet- 
erate beyond  any  thing  known  in  Europe !  It  is  almost  im- 
possible to  get  a  domestic  servant  free  from  this  loathsome 
disease,  or  keep  him  so.  The  truth  is,  they  wash  their  bodies 
often  enough,  but  much  less  frequently  their  clothes,  and  there 
is  a  vast  deal  too  much  of  promiscuous  herding  and  slopping 
together  at  the  baths  of  all  the  lower  orders  for  much  purity 
to  come  out  of  them,  moral  or  physical.  The  love  of  dress  be- 
ing undeveloped  in  both  sexes  to  a  remarkable  extent,  there  is 
of  course  abundant  opportunity  of  observing  the  state  of  the 
skin.  En  revanche^  if  the  men  dispense  with  robe  or  trowsers 
whenever  they  are  free  to  do  as  they  choose,  they  seem  to  de- 
light in  ornament  that  has  the  double  advantage  of  perma- 
nence and  close  fitting,  without  otherwise  incommoding  the 
wearer  when  once  made  to  order.  I  have  not  been  among  the 
South  Sea  Islanders  yet,  or  the  New  Zealanders,  nor  even  made 
acquaintance  with  the  Chippewa  Indians,  but  I  can  conceive 
nothing  more  elaborate  in  the  way  of  tattooing  than  the  speci- 
mens supplied  by  the  male  population  of  Japan.  And  really 
to  see  them  in  their  habitual  costume  {videlicet,  a  girdle  of  the 
narrowest  possible  kind),  the  greater  part  of  the  body  and 
limbs  scrolled  over  with  bright  bine  dragons,  and  lions,  and 
tigers,  and  figures  of  men  and  women,  tattooed  into  their 
skins  with  the  most  artistic  and  elaborate  ornamentation — 
•  scantily  dressed  but  decently  painted,'  as  has  been  said  of  our 
own  ancestors  when  Julius  Cjesar  first  discovered  them — it  is 
impossible  to  deny  that  they  look  remarkably  like  a  race  of 
savages,  if  not  savages,  in  their  war  paint.  The  women  seem 
content  with  the  skin  that  nature  gave  them,  in  all  its  varying 
shades  of  olive,  and  sometimes  scarcely  a  shade  at  all.    I  have 


180 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  IX. 


seen  many  as  fair  as  my  own  countrywomen,  and  with  heal- 
thy blood  mantling  in  their  cheeks — that  is,  when  fresh  wash- 
ed, and  before  they  have  painted  cheeks  and  Hps,  and  powder- 
ed all  the  face  and  neck  with  rice  flour  until  they  look  like 
painted  Twelfth-night  Queens  done  in  pastry  and  white  lead. 
When  they  have  renewed  the  black  varnish  to  the  teeth,  pluck- 
ed out  tlie  last  hair  from  their  eyebrows,  the  Japanese  matrons 
may  certainly  claim  unrivaled  pre-eminence  in  artificial  ugli- 
ness over  all  their  sex.  Their  mouths  thus  disfigured  are  like 
open  sepulchres,  and  whether  given  to  '  flatter  with  their 
tongues'  I  can  not  undertake  in  this  my  novitiate  to  say,  but 
they  must  have  sirens'  tongues  or  a  fifty-horse  power  of  flat- 
tery to  make  those  red-varnished  lips  utter  any  thing  which 
could  compensate  man  or  child  for  so  much  artificial  ugliness ! 
Were  it  not  for  such  perverse  ingenuity  in  marring  nature's 
fairest  work,  many  among  them  might  make  some  considerable 
pretensions  to  beauty,  as  several  of  the  studies  from  nature 
scattered  through  this  volume  will  show.  The  type,  as  may 
be  seen  in  the  annexed  portrait,  is  neither  Malay  nor  Mongol, 


FEMALE    HEAD-DRESS. 


•while  the  elaborate  style  of  the  hair  is  in  itself  a  study,  and 
displays  a  marvelous  amount  of  feminine  ingenuity.  One 
might  certainly  search  the  world  through  without  being  able 
to  match  the  womankind  of  Japan  for  such  total  abnegation 
of  personal  vanity.  If  this  be  a  sacrifice  offered  on  the  shrine 
of  conjugal  fidelity,  the  motive  is  no  doubt  very  laudable,  but 
it  leads  to  the  inference,  not  altogether  so  complimentary,  that 


ChakIX.]  SELF-INFLICTED  ugliness.  183 

either  the  men  are  more  dangerous  or  the  women  more  frail 
than  elsewhere,  since  such  extreme  measures  have  been  found 
necessary  to  secure  the  same  results.  Surely  something  less 
than  the  whole  womanhood  of  Japan  deliberately  making  it- 
self hideous  might  have  sufficed  to  prove  the  absence  of  all 
wish  or  design  to  captivate  admirers !  For  my  part,  I  can  not 
help  thinking  the  husbands  pay  rather  dear  for  any  protection 
or  security  it  is  supposed  to  bring,  since,  if  no  other  man  can 
find  any  thing  pleasing  in  a  face  so  marred  and  disfigured,  the 
husband  must  be  just  as  badly  ofi^,  if  he  has  any  sense  of  beauty 
in  him.  Perhaps  custom  and  that  '  deformed  thief,'  fashion, 
may  have  brought  him  to  like  it ;  but  if  so,  where  is  the  pro- 
tection ?  If  he  can  like  it,  so  may  others.  Perverted  tastes 
are  infectious.  Of  course  I  shall  be  told — nay,  I  think  I  hear 
excellent  and  exemplary  English  matrons  saying,  with  a  cer- 
tain monitory  voice, '  That  when  the  affections  are  engaged,  a 
loving  husband  sees  only  the  mind  and  the  heart  in  the  face, 
and  loses  the  individual  features  ;  and  as  those  are  worthy  of 
love  and  admiration,  so  is  his  indifference  to  the  skin-deep 
beauty  of  the  face,  his  love  being  something  quite  irrespective 
of  such  graces ;  and,  more  than  this,  that,  as  a  matter  of  expe- 
rience, six  months'  married  life  serves  to  familiarize  the  ugliest 
faces,  or  efface  the  original  impression  of  the  fairest.  I  have 
heard  some  such  discourse  in  time  past  in  support  of  a  theory, 
which,  despite  all  my  efforts,  I  never  could  cordially  accept. 
But  less  than  ever  could  I  have  done  so  now%  after  a  few  weeks' 
residence  in  Japan,  where  I  saw  the  principle  carried  out  to  its 
last  frightful  consequences,  and  with  inexorable  logic !  What- 
ever man's  sensuous  perception  of  the  beautiful  may  be — and 
some,  at  least,  are  very  unfortunately  endowed  that  way — he 
must  of  necessity,  for  the  whole  term  of  his  (or  her)  existence, 
be  condemned  to  take  up  his  abode  with  willful  and  unmiti- 
gated ugliness  in  the  face  of  his  cherished  partner ! 

Moreover,  it  does  not  seem  to  answer  very  perfectly  the  end 
proposed,  to  judge  by  many  very  graphic  and  popular  repre- 
sentations of  conjugal  differences  and  infidelities.  They  have 
not,  it  is  true,  so  far  as  I  know%  yet  arrived  at  such  a  pitch  of 
civilization  as  to  require  the  assistance  of  a  court  answering  to 
that  presided  over  by  Sir  Cresswell  Cresswell — unnecessary, 
perhaps,  as  they  have  adopted,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  accom- 
panying illustration,  with  jiolygamy  and  concubines,  other  parts 
of  the  Jewish  Law,  and  write"  letters  of  divorce — upon  provo- 
cation. Here  is  a  little  conjugal  scene,  painted  to  the  life  by 
one  of  themselves,  where  man  and  wife  are  plainly  at  issue. 
The  husband  is  rubbing  the  Indian  ink  which  is  to  write  a  let- 


184 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  IX. 


WEITING    A    LETTER    OF   DIVORCE. 


ter  of  divorce,  and  friends  of  each  pai-ty  are  apparently  seek- 
ing in  vain  to  reconcile  the  couple — the  broken  dishes  in  the 
foreground  appearing  symbolic  of  broken  trust,  and  vows 
which  are  past  restoring!  Here  again  is  another  conjugal 
scene,  where  the  lady  has  discovered  her  husband  with  a  love- 


LOVE-LETTKR    DISCOVERED, 


Chap.  IX.]     INTOXICATION.— A  CONJUGAL  SCENE.  185 

letter  of  a  most  inconvenient  length  for  concealment ;  and  to 
all  appearances  it  is  the  wife  who  is  taking  the  law  against  her 
husband,  as  sometimes  in  more  civilized  lands — taking  it,  too, 
in  her  own  hands,  and  seeming  to  require  no  extraneous  aiding 
whatever  from  judge  or  jury  ! 

Granted  that  constant  intercourse  and  continued  interchange 
of  good  offices  do  greatly  soften  to  the  eye  outward  deformities, 
is  it  very  wrong  to  wish  that  the  Japanese  women  might  be 
persuaded  not  to  make  themslves  such  frights,  dressed  or  un- 
dressed ?  Enlightened  by  what  I  see  in  Japan,  I  confess,  how- 
ever, I  should,  as  a  matter  of  taste^  prefer  and  recommend  the 
former,  as  more  advantageous  to  milliners,  and  (I  hope  I  shall 
be  forgiven)  occasionally  to  the  ladies  themselves. 

'The  Japanese  are  perfectly  ignorant  of  alcohol.'  There 
may  be  a  difference  of  opinion  as  to  what  constitutes  alcohol, 
but  '  SakV  seems  to  me  an  excellent  imitation ;  and  if  it  is 
meant  that  the  Japanese  are  innocent  of  intoxication — a  noisy, 
dangerous,  and  pugnacious  intoxication — I  am  sorry  truth  com- 
pels me  to  say  there  never  was  an  assertion  of  fact  more  sig- 
nally refuted  by  practice.  Here  the  gentler  sex  sometimes 
finds  occasion  to  render  service  which  may  well  make  amends 
to  the  erring  husband  for  something  of  jealous  watchfulnesi 


CONJUOAL   SEBVICB. 


186  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  fCHAP.  IX. 

over  his  aberrations  iu  more  sober  moments ;  for  see  how  lov- 
ingly and  unreproachfully  she  is  leading  him  home,  when  he  is 
past  taking  care  of  himself,  and  might  very  easily  come  to 
grief  if  he  met  a  two-sworded  Samourai.  From  a  road  which 
ran  behind  the  Legation,  the  noise  of  roistering  blades,  as  soon 
as  night  had  well  set  in,  and  the  shouting  of  hoarse  inebriate 
voices,  left  no  room  for  doubt  as  to  the  state  of  the  parties. 
The  great  road,  the  'Tocado,'  ran  iu  front,  and  it  furnished  evi- 
dence enough  at  earlier  hours,  only  to  he  observed  closely, 
however,  at  the  chance  of  getting  a  sword-thrust,  or  one's  head 
cut  open,  as  a  part  of  the  evidence. 

'The  Japanese  are  as  perfect  gentlemen  as  could  be  found 
in  any  part  of  the  world.'  As  I  have  described  them  looking 
very  like  North  American  Indians  in  their  war  paint,  and  the 
resemblance  is  very  close,  I  am  bound  also  to  say  that  when 
they  see  fit  to  dress  themselves  like  decent  people  elsewhere, 
there  is  a  notable  change  in  the  whole  man.  Even  the  most 
elaborately  tattooed,  as  he  approach- 
es you  covered  with  a  vest,  with  the 
lowly  and  not  ungraceful  bend  for- 
ward of  the  whole  body,  and  begs  to 
know  your  wishes,  displays  a  gentle- 
ness and  winning  courtesy  in  man- 
ner and  expression  which  'John'  or 
'  Jeanies'  would  find  it  very  difiicult 
to  approach,  even  in  idea !  Be  it  in- 
nate or  acquired,  it  sits  perfectly  easy 
upon  him.  And  in  the  upper  classes, 
with  the  exception  of  oflicials,  or  Sa- 
mourai, when  they  may  feel  licensed 
A  JAPANESE  SERVANT  OR  ^^  ^®  iusolcut  aud  truculcut  to  the 
WORKMAN.  foreigner,  there   is  in    their-  perfect 

self-possession  and  self-command, 
their  quiet  demeanor,  and  the  softened  tones  in  which  they 
seem  habitually  to  speak,  even  to  their  inferiors  and  servants, 
a  well-bred  air  which  makes  them  look  like  gentlemen.  Their 
partially  shaven  heads,  the  hair  most  scrupulously  dressed  and 
turned  tight  up  over  the  back  in  a  truncated  queue  laid  on  the 
bare  crown,  their  flowing  gown  and  surcoat,  in  summer  con- 
sisting of  delicate-colored  gauzes  and  silks,  chiefly  grays  and 
lilacs,  or  fawn,  the  absence  of  hair  about  the  face,  and  the  bare 
throat,  all  help  the  general  effect  of  men  carefully  got  up,  who 
not  only  respect  themselves,  but  are  well  accustomed  to  respect 
from  others.  There  is  nothing,  perhaps,  more  readily  recog- 
nized at  a  glance  than  the  difference  of  expression,  gait,  and 


Chap.  IX.]  CONVENTIONALITIES.  l87 

general  bearing,  in  either  man  or  woman,  between  those  to 
whom  outward  respect  and  deference  are  habitually  shown, 
and  those  to  whom  such  observances  are  new.  Judged  by 
outward  marks,  then,  the  educated  Japanese  is  to  all  appear- 
ance a  gentleman.  And  if  farther  acquaintance  suggests  some 
reservations,  more  especially  as  regards  conventionalities,  there 
is  still  much  to  accept  frankly.  They  understand  the  courte- 
sies of  life  perfectly,  and  their  observances  of  etiquette  seem, 
upon  the  whole,  less  exaggerated  and  cumbrous  than  among 
their  Chinese  neighbors.  They  do  not  tell  the  truth,  officially 
at  all  events,  and  do  not  particularly  care  that  you  should  think 
they  do,  it  would  almost  seem ;  though,  as  all  speech  and  as- 
severations become  idle  under  an  open  and  avowed  disregard 
of  truth,  this  can  hardly  be  so  in  fact.  But,  at  all  events,  they 
are  very  callous  as  to  the  discovery  of  any  former  aberration, 
though  anxious  enough  sometimes  that  they  should  be  believed 
at  the  moment.  Then  it  takes  long  habit  before  Europeans  can 
bear  the  frequent  and  loud  eructations,  as  evidence  of  a  good 
meal,  without  a  strong  mental  protest.  So,  when  a  Japanese 
takes  out  of  the  loose  fold  of  his  vest  a  nice  square  of  paper, 
and,  applying  it  to  his  nose,  carefully  folds  the  envelope  into 
his  sleeve  for  a  pocket,  or  gives  it  to  his  attendant  to  throw 
away,  that  is  merely  a  conventional  thing,  and  tiiey  may  per- 
haps reasonably  contend  that  theirs  is  a  more  delicate  pro- 
ceeding than  ours  of  carrying  a  handkerchief,  or  '  nose-cloth,' 
about  the  person  for  a  day.  Or  again,  the  day  being  warm, 
when  he  brings  out  of  the  same  recess  a  neatly  buckled  pouch 
of  matting,  and  takes  a  swab-cloth  without  hesitation  or  dis- 
guise, not  very  white,  to  wipe  the  perspiration  away,  retuni- 
ing  it  carefully  when  the  operation  is  perfected,  it  is  not  ex- 
actly as  gentlemen  or  ladies  do  at  home,  but  it  is  a  difference 
only  in  form,  for  under  the  same  circumstances  the  act  in  one 
way  or  other  must  be  performed  by  both.  But,  at  least, 
they  are  not  an  expectorating  race:  living  in  houses  with 
clean  matted  floors,  one  feels  secure  from  that  disgusting  habit. 
There  is  also,  upon  the  whole,  so  far  as  I  have  had  opportuni- 
ties of  observing,  less  cringing  servility  in  the  inferior  classes, 
lav  and  official,  and  much  less  official  hauteur  in  the  dealings 
of  the  higher  with  the  lower  classes,  than  the  accounts  in  Com- 
modore Perry's  narrative  had  led  us  to  suspect.  It  is  very  true 
that  Moriyaina  himself,  the  prince  and  paragon  of  interpreters, 
and  an  officer  to  boot  (he  particularly  begged  my  secretary  on 
one  occasion  so  to  style  him,  and  not  Interpreter),  when  he  acts 
as  interpreter  in  the  official  intei'views  with  the  high  officers  of 
State,  comes  bai'ofooted  to  the  vicinity  of  the  Chief  Minister} 


188  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  IX. 

and  sinks  on  his  knees,  or,  when  not  actually  speaking,  rests  on 
his  heels  by  some  ingenious  process  (still  a  great  mystery  to 
me),  and  there  remains  during  the  whole  interview,  however 
long  it  may  be.  If  there  are  two  or  three  Interpreters  they 
all  do  the  same,  and  a  long  row  of  mute  attendants  are  ranged 
behind  in  the  same  attitude.  Yet  something  of  the  servility 
of  the  attitude  is  lost  in  the  profound  air  of  deference  expressed, 
and  the  urbane  and  gentle  mode  of  address  always  employed 
by  the  chief.  When  Moriyama  listens,  his  head  is  lowered 
nearly  to  the  floor,  with  the  hands  prone  and  the  eyes  bent 
down ;  and  so,  when  he  has  to  interpret  the  answer,  he  com- 
mences by  a  similar  lowly  prostration,  the  head  only  a  little 
more  elevated.  Though,  even  with  this  advantage,  how  these 
low-breathed  sounds — now  and  then  cut  in  two,  as  it  were,  by 
some  clever  ventriloquism,  bringing  half  the  words  from  the 
lower  depths  of  the  chest — ever  reach  the  ears  for  which  they 
are  intended,  or  convey  any  meaning,  it  is  hard  to  understand. 
Certain  I  am  the  Japanese  must  have,  by  nature  or  practice,  very 
line  auditory  nerves.  However,  the  slowly  recurring  '  Hai !' 
*Heh!'  'Hah!'  (Yes) — for  it  seems  pronounced  all  ways,  and 
sometimes  from  the  lips,  but  oftener  from  unfathomable  re- 
cesses low  in  the  throat,  and  hovering  between  a  deep-drawn 
sigh  and  an  interjection — gives  assurance  that  the  confidential 
murmurs  are  really  heard  to  effect ;  and  they  have  this  advan- 
tage, that  what  the  interpreter  is  saying  can  only  be  known 
by  the  high  ofiicer  himself  who  is  addressed.  The  following 
sketch  well  represents  the  attitude,  though  not  the  costume  of 
an  officer  on  duty. 


A  JAPANESE!   PROSTRATING  HIMSELF   BEFORB  HIS   SUPERIORS. 

This  gossiping  chapter  on  Japanese  sayings  and  doings,  how- 
ever, must  be  brought  to  a  close  before  half  the  *  queries'  and 


Chap.  IX]  SCENERY  OF  THE  COUNTRY.  189 

'facts'  of  my  fair  coiTespondent  are  answered.  I  see  all  sorts 
of  notions' jotted  down  about '  common  dogs,'  or  dogs  in  com- 
mon— the  only  real  nuisance  of  Japanese  cities,  in  addition  to 
the  two-s worded  Samourai — and '  beautiful  cats'  (without  tails), 
*  rats  and  mice,' '  agates  and  cornelians,'  and  '  pearls  fished  up 
every  where,  of  great  size  and  beauty,  which  Japanese  do  not 
prize,' the  last  part  being  more  wonderful  than  the  first.  All 
I  could  then  have  said  was,  that  I  had  seen  no  pearls,  large  or 
small ;  but  if  there  were  any,  I  should  be  exceedingly  surprised 
if  my  clever  friends,  the  Japanese,  had  not  learned  their  full 
value !  And  such  I  afterward  found  to  be  the  fact.  They 
have  them  in  certain  quantities,  and  know  what  price  to  ask 
for  them,  and  how  to  imitate  the  true  article  by  false  substi- 
tutes. And  as  for '  fine  variegated  marbles,  jaspers,'  and '  other 
precious  stones'  (said  to  come  from  the  mountains),  but  particu- 
larly '  pearls,'  for  which  they  are '  celebrated — alas!  I  have  seen 
nothing,'  and  could  only  assure  her  I  would '  make  a  note  of  it,' 
especially  the  mountain  pearls,  if  I  should  ever  see  any,  and 
duly  send  her  a  sample. 

My  query  sheet  wound  up  with  something  which  is  a  fact, 
namely,  that '  outside  of  England  there  is  nothing  so  green,  so 
garden-like,  so  full  of  tranquil  beauty:  the  country  luxuriously 
wooded,  and  cedars  of  great  size  and  beauty  are  plentiful ;  the 
soil  very  fertile.' 

Yes,  all  this  is  very  true :  such  fertility  of  soil,  fine  growth 
of  ornamental  timber,  richness  and  variety  of  foliage,  or  such 

{)erfection  of  care  and  neatness  in  the  hedgerows  and  shady 
anes,  the  gardens,  and  the  numerous  pleasure-grounds  of  the 
temples,  are  not,  I  believe,  to  be  found  any  where  out  of  En- 
gland. The  brilliant  green  hues  and  freshness  of  the  grass  and 
every  kind  of  foliage  rather  betokens  a  damp  climate;  but  the 
mixture  of  tropical  vegetation  with  endless  succession  of  ever- 
green trees  and  the  hardier  race  of  pines  and  conifers  gives  a 
character  to  the  whole  scenery  of  the  coimtry  as  novel  as  it  is 
perfect  in  effect.  The  tree-fern,  which  looks  like  a  palm  in  its 
tufts  of  top-foliage  and  bare  trunk,  the  bamboo,  banana,  and 
palm,  side  by  side  with  the  pine,  the  oak,  and  the  beech,  with  a 
numerous  race  of  timber  trees  and  shrubs,  some  of  which  are 
probably  unknown  in  Europe,  open  a  wide  field  for  the  bota- 
nist, and  give  studies  for  the  landscape  painter  of  unrivaled 
beauty.  There  is  an  infinite  variety  of  form,  character,  and 
coloring,  in  the  masses  of  foliage  that  every  where  meet  the 
eye,  grouped  in  the  midst  of  well-kept  fields  and  verdant  slopes 
which  any  English  gentleman  might  envy  for  his  park.  Of 
meadow-land  only  is  there  any  want ;  the  soil  available  for  cul- 


190  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  X. 

ture  appears  too  precious  for  pasture,  and  is  kept  exclusively 
for  the  production  of  rice,  and  corn,  and  esculent  vegetables. 
Hence  no  cattle  are  kept,  except  horses,  and  a  few  oxen  for 
agricultural  purposes,  and  no  sheep  or  goats.  To  all  this  per- 
fection of  beauty  it  is  almost  the  only  drawback,  while  to  the 
larder  the  loss  is  too  irreparable  to  be  contemplated  with  phi- 
losophy. 


CHAPTER  X. 

A  Glance  at  Japanese  Politics. — How  the  two  American  Treaties  were  made 
and  inaugurated.  — By  whom  the  Country  is  governed,  and  how. 

In  a  preceding  chapter  I  endeavored  to  give  some  general 
idea  of  the  civilization,  the  social  condition,  and  the  Govern- 
ment of  Japan,  as  these  were  known  to  Europeans  in  past  cen- 
turies. This  earlier  period  offered  a  point  of  departure  having 
many  advantages.  It  formed  a  natural,  and  in  some  degree  a 
necessary  introduction  to  any  narrative  purporting  to  throw 
some  light  on  the  existing  state  of  the  country,  as  revealed  by 
the  experience  of  the  first  permanent  mission  located  in  the 
capital.  Some  first  lessons  in  Japanese  diplomacy  and  policy, 
as  well  as  in  their  language,  already  given,  will  have  shown  the 
difficulties  which  from  the  beginning  attended  the  first  estab- 
lishment of  the  Legations,  though  at  the  commencement  there 
were  but  two,  the  British  and  the  American.  The  second 
treaty  of  the  United  States,  initiating  a  total  change  of  policy, 
having  been  the  precursor,  and,  as  it  wei"e,  the  original,  from 
which  all  those  of  subsequent  date  were  drafted,  it  was  of  im- 
portance to  ascertain  what  had  been  the  various  influences 
determining  the  Japanese  ruling  powers  to  take  such  a  stride 
in  advance,  as  the  second  series  of  treaties  marked.  It  will 
be  necessary  for  the  reader  to  remember  that  the  first  infrac- 
tion of  the  Japanese  system  of  absolute  seclusion  from  the  rest 
of  the  world  was  eflfected  by  Commodore  Perry,  in  1854,  who 
found  means  to  induce  them  to  enter  into  a  treaty  of  hu- 
manity, guaranteeing  simply  succor  and  good  treatment,  in- 
stead of  imprisonment  and  death,  to  any  shipwrecked  or  dis- 
tressed sailors  thrown  on  their  inhospitable  coasts.  It  aimed 
at  nothing  more,  and  the  only  relations  established  consisted 
in  the  right  to  locate  a  consul  at  Simoda,  a  small  and  unimpoi'- 
tant  place  south  of  Cape  Idzu.  A  very  difierent  state  of  af- 
fairs was  contemplated  in  the  treaty  entered  into  four  years 
later  by  Mr.  Harris,  on  the  part  of  the  United  States,     Com- 


Chap.  X.]  JAPANESE  I»OLItIC&  191 

inerce  and  permanent  I^iplomatic  relations  were  t?ie  avowed 
objects  of  the  second  series,  initiated  as  was  the  first,  by  the 
American  Representative.  This  marked  ahiiost  as  great  a 
change  in  the  relations  of  Japan  with  the  West  as  had  the 
treaty  of  Perry,  which,  for  the  first  time  during  two  centuries, 
recognized  a  right  of  intercourse  as  a  principle ;  thus  repudia- 
ting their  long-cherished  policy  and  asserted  right  of  exclusion. 
How  came  such  a  result  about,  both  in  the  first  and  the  second 
of  these  instances?  What  train  of  causes  produced  a  change 
amounting  to  a  revolution  in  tlie  foreign  policy  of  the  nation — 
a  policy  so  inflexibly  and  resolutely  maintained  at  all  risks,  aft- 
er years  of  internecine  war  and  bloodshed  for  more  than  two 
centuries?  By  what  machinery  wao  the  change  effected? 
Questions  these,  on  the  right  solution  of  which  obviously  de- 

E ended  very  much  in  the  future.  A  predominating  feeling  of 
ostility  to  all  innovation,  and  the  admission  of  foreigners 
among  the  ruling  classes,  inanifested  itself  in  too  many  forms 
to  admit  of  doubt,  when,  at  the  lapse  of  a  year  after  the  sig- 
nature of  the  successive  treaties,  the  time  arrived  for  giving 
them  execution.  With  such  prevailing  feeling,  how  could 
these  treaties  have  been  made  ?  What  motives  actuated  those 
who  at  the  time  held  the  reins  of  power?  While  these  re- 
mained unexplained  and  unintelligible,  every  thing  else  con- 
nected with  the  position  of  foreigners  in  the  country  was  ob- 
scure and  doubtful.  No  force,  apparently,  had  been  used.  It 
was  indeed  the  peculiar  pride  and  Vjoast  of  Mr.  Harris,  that  he 
had  effected  his  object  with  no  material  means  of  support  or 
coercion ;  the  triumph  of  reason,  argument,  and  diplomacy ! 
This  seemed  very  incomprehensible  to  me,  and  I  confess  very 
doubtful.  The  whole  subject  was  one  of  great  interest  and 
importance  moreover,  and  so  continually  presented  itself  with 
all  its  diflSculties  in  our  earlier  intercourse  with  the  Govern- 
ment and  people,  that  it  engaged  my  earnest  attention  with 
Proportionate  frequency.  When  the  mystery  was  unraveled, 
found  within  its  meshes  the  pivot  on  which  many  very  tragic 
events  had  turned,  as  well  as  a  long  succession  of  struggles  and 
difficulties  by  no  means  at  an  end.  No  apology  can  be  need- 
ed, therefore,  if  I  enter  upon  the  matter  with  some  fullness  of 
detail.  Many  of  the  following  particulars,  so  far  as  regarded 
Mr.  Harris's  own  actions,  were  given  spontaneously  by  himself, 
and  with  full  permission  to  make  any  use  of  the  information. 
Indeed,  as  regards  publicity,  the  leading  facts  have  already 
been  published,  both  in  parliamentary  papers  and  the  daily 
press  of  both  countries.  All  that  I  need  do  for  the  reader  is 
to  group  them  in  such  order  as  will  best  conduce  to  a  clear 


102  THUEK  YEAU'^.  IN  JAPAN.  [Ciixi-.X. 

conception  of  the  bearinaf  and  connection  of  the  different  parts, 
and  supply  a  plain  and  intelligible  answer  to  the  questions  al- 
ready enumerated. 

The  broad  fact  that  a  treaty  was  peaceably  negotiated  en- 
tirely changing  the  policy  and  relations  of  a  Government  and 
people,  known  chiefly  for  their  tenacity  of  purpose  in  rejecting 
all  overtures  and  attempts  on  the  part  of  civilized  nations  to 
enter  into  friendly  relations  with  them,  has  to  be  explained, 
taken  in  connection  with  another  not  less  patent  iact,  that  the 
Japanese  Goverament  have  never  ceased  aflirming,  since  those 
relations  began,  that  the  country  was  wholly  ui;prepared  for 
such  changes,  and  that  the  whole  nation  regarded  all  foreign 
intercourse  as  a  calamity  and  a  source  of  danger !  The  two 
taken  together  involve  a  contradiction  of  the  most  unintelligi- 
ble kind,  without  the  help  of  some  missing  links.  To  supply 
these,  in  a  rapid  narrative  of  actual  occurrences,  with  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  country  and  the  feudal  classes  for  chief  actors, 
will  probably  serve  better  than  any  dissertation,  however  elab- 
orate or  scientific,  to  convey  a  clear  idea  of  the  political  state 
of  Japan  on  the  arrival  of  the  Foieign  Legations,  and  the  na- 
ture of  the  difiiculties  to  be  overcome  in  any  attempt  to  estab- 
lish commercial  and  friendly  relations  with  the  country  under 
such  conditions. 

While  Japan  continued  immovable,  with  her  doors  fast 
closed  against  the  world,  a  little  postern  gate  alone  being  kept 
open  for  Dutch  and  Chinese  at  Nagasaki,  and  through  which 
both  were  allowed  (under  continually  increasing  difficulties 
and  exactions)  to  do  a  small  barter  trade,  great  changes  were 
taking  place  on  the  other  side  of  the  globe.  The  three  inven- 
tions which,  in  the  Chinese  land  of  their  birth,  had  remained 
unfruitful  for  a  thousand  years — Printing,  the  Compass,  and 
Gunpowder — had  sufficed  in  less  than  three  centuries  to  rev- 
olutionize all  Europe,  and  create  a  great  empire  in  a  newly-dis- 
covered continent.  Finally,  Steam  and  Electricity  came  in  the 
present  century  to  do  the  work  of  ages  in  a  single  generation, 
annihilating  time  and  space,  niaking  a  tramway  over  the  widest 
seas,  and  bringing  the  most  distant  countries  into  close  prox- 
imity. To  China  and  Japan,  wrapped  in  Asiatic  dreams  of 
self-consequence  and  isolated  existence,  these  mighty  changes 
were  either  unknown  or  unheeded,  until  both  in  quick  succes- 
sion were  somewhat  rudely  wakened  by  finding  steam  navies 
on  their  coasts,  and  all  Europe  thundering  at  their  gates  with 
a  demand  for  instant  admission !  The  Chinese  resisted,  and 
they  were  burst  open.  When  Amherst  and  Napier  miserably 
failed,  Paixan  and  Armstrong  succeeded,  and  finally  planted 


CuAP.X.]  DUTCH  INFLUENCES.  193 

the  flag  of  European  Legations  in  Pekin  itself.  Japan,  there 
seemed  reason  to  believe,  was  better  advised  and  better  able, 
perhaps,  to  understand  and  appreciate  the  changes  which  had 
completely  altered  the  relative  positions  of  Europe  and  the 
East.  Partly,  it  would  seem,  from  their  greater  quickness  and 
aptitude  for  seizing  the  true  meaning  and  significance  of  such 
facts  as  come  before  them,  but  greatly  also  owing  to  the  con- 
tinued relations  they  had  maintained  with  the  Dutch.  A  door 
was  thus  kept  open  by  which  they  could  get  reliable  informa- 
tion of  what  was  really  passing  in  the  world  beyond.  There 
seems  little  doubt  that,  so  far  back  as  1845,  after  the  close  of 
the  first  war  with  Chma,  the  Dutch  set  themselves  seriously  to 
work  to  prepai'e  the  Japanese  mind  for  inevitable  changes. 
The  Government  of  the  Netherlands  has  claimed  some  grati- 
tude from  other  European  nations  for  liberality  and  disinter- 
estedness in  having  thus  spontaneously  prepared  the  way  for 
their  admission  into  Japan.  And  much  of  Commodore  Perry's 
success,  on  which  all  subsequent  progress  hinged,  is,  I  think, 
fairly  to  be  attributed  to  these  preliminary  efforts  of  the  Dutch. 
In  gradually  instilling  into  the  minds  of  Japanese  Rulers  a  con- 
viction of  the  absolute  necessity,  sooner  or  later,  of  a  departure 
from  their  system  of  absolute  seclusion,  and  of  their  total  ina- 
bility to  cope  with  the  material  means  of  attack  and  coercion 
wielded  by  the  Western  Powers,  backed  as  such  arguments 
would  be  by  a  reference  to  what  we  had  done  in  China,  there 
can  be  no  reasonable  question,  I  think,  that  they  effectively 
prepared  the  way  for  fundamental  changes.  Their  representa- 
tions must  have  had  great  weight,  and  no  doubt  materially 
tended  to  bring  about  the  final  result  ten  years  later  (in  1854), 
when  the  American  squadron  first  appeared  in  the  Japanese 
waters  with  proposals  for  a  treaty.  As  to  the  disinterestedness 
and  liberality  of  the  action,  why  should  we  take  the  ungracious 
office  of  contesting  either  the  one  or  the  other  ?  The  best  of 
governments  and  of  men  are  not  absolutely  above  the  influence 
of  self-interest,  and  other  more  or  less  worldly  motives,  even 
when  bent  upon  seeking  to  do  good.  No  doubt  it  might  be 
said  with  truth  that  the  time  had  long  gone  by  when  the  Dutch 
had  any  thing  to  lose  by  letting  in  other  nations  to  the  Japan- 
ese markets,  and  they  may  well  have  been  glad  to  seize  on  any 
opportunity  (without  abandoning  that  which  they  had  so  te- 
naciously clung  to  for  many  generations),  of  escaping  from  the 
humiliating  and  objectionable  position  they  occupied  singly  in 
Japan.  And  how  could  this  be  better  done  than  by  joining 
with  the  Powers  of  the  West,  and  preparing  the  way  for  the 
success  of  all,  in  breaking  down  the  barriers  which  separated 

I 


194  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  X. 

Japan  from  the  rest  of  the  world  ?  But  whatever  may  have 
been  the  motives  that  influenced  them,  into  which,  I  repeat,  we 
need  not  too  curiously  inquire,  they  contributed  material  aid  in 
a  good  work ;  and  whether  the  Japanese  may  be  disposed  to 
thank  them  for  the  co-operation,  of  which  I  have  serious  doubt 
now  that  the  results  are  before  them,  the  rest  of  the  Treaty 
Powers,  who  desired  to  see  the  doors  unbarred  without  fight- 
ing for  it,  may  very  well  thank  the  Dutch  for  the  helping  hand 
which  they  lent  from  the  inside. 

It  was  under  these  circumstances  that  Commodore  Perry 
appeared  oflf  Cape  Idzoo  on  July  8,  1853,  with  an  American 
squadron  consisting  of  two  large-class  steam  frigates  and  two 
sloops  of  war.  And  having  delivered  a  letter  from  the  Presi- 
dent proposing  a  treaty  of  amity  and  commerce,  which  the 
Japanese  authorities  showed  little  disposition  to  grant,  though 
by  no  means  prepared  for  what  they  evidently  anticipated 
might  be  the  consequences  of  a  refusal,  the  Commodore  took 
his  departure  with  a  promise,  or  a  menace,  whichever  way  it 
may  have  been  taken,  of  returning  the  following  year,  and  with 
a '  larger  fleet,'  for  a  definite  answer. 

On  February  12, 1854,  accordingly,  the  Commodore  reap- 
peared in  the  Bay  of  Yeddo  with  three  steam  frigates,  four 
sloops  of  war,  and  two  store-ships — a  squadron  of  nine  vessels. 
It  is  not  necessary  here  to  go  into  the  details  already  known 
of  the  somewhat  protracted  negotiations  which  followed,  end- 
ing in  the  signature  of  a  treaty  of  amity,  and  promise  of  suc- 
cor to  ships  in  distress.  They  tried  various  expedients  as 
grounds  of  delay  in  giving  any  final  answer.  Particularly 
they  urged  the  death  of  the  Siogoon  (Tycoon)  in  the  interval 
between  the  Commodore's  two  visits,  information  which  they 
had  even  sent  on,  through  their  Dutch  friends,  to  Batavia,  in 
the  vain  hope  of  preventing  his  return,  or  at  least  indefinitely 
deferring  it.  Finding  this  step  had  failed  in  the  desired  efiect, 
and  all  pleas  for  denial  resolutely  put  aside  by  a  Plenipotentia- 
ry in  command  of  a  large  fleet — speaking  words  of  peace,  but 
looking  dangerous — they  signed  a  treaty  opening  two  new 
ports,  of  no  value,  indeed,  in  any  commercial  sense,  but  of  in- 
finite importance  as  sounding  the  knell  of  their  long-cherished 
policy  of  exclusion  and  non-intercourse  ! 

One  thing  must  be  perfectly  clear,  even  from  this  bare  re- 
cital of  facts,  namely,  that  the  Japanese  Government  did  not 
wish  to  make  a  treaty,  and  were  only  induced  to  sign  one  in 
the  end  under  the  '  moral  suasion'  of  a  formidable  fleet,  com- 
manded by  the  negotiator  in  person,  which  they  felt  by  no 
means  certain  would  not  be  employed  against  them  in  active 


Chap.  X.]  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY  195 

hostilities  if  they  persisted  in  refusing.  In  perfect  accord  with 
this  is  tlic  f^irther  fact  that  they  yielded  less  than  was  asked, 
and  gave  no  more,  even  under  strong  pressure,  than  they  could 
help. 

This  treaty  of  Commodore  Perry's  brought  in  due  time  a 
Diplomatic  agent  of  the  United  States  to  Simoda,  in  the  per- 
son of  Mr.  Ilanis,  with  the  official  title  of  Consul  General. 
There  he  resided  until  1857,  when,  having  a  letter  of  credence 
from  the  President,  he  succeeded,  with  no  small  difficulty,  in 
obtaining  permission  to  proceed  to  Yeddo  to  present  it,  either 
to  the  Tycoon  himself  or  to  his  ministers.  But  the  Japanese 
would  have  been  untrue  to  their  own  nature  and  instincts  if 
this  had  been  conceded  without  a  stout  resistance. 

The  way  in  wliich  the  parallels  of  attack  and  works  of  coxm- 
ter-defense  were  drawn  by  the  two  contending  forces  engaged 
it  was  very  amusing  to  trace.  The  thorough-going  and  clear- 
headed American,  feeling  he  held  a  key  in  the  President's  let- 
ter which,  rightly  used,  might  open  the  gates  of  Yeddo,  de- 
termined to  put  it  to  its  destined  use  on  the  side  of  the  attack ; 
the  Japanese  ofilcials,  first  of  Simoda,  and  afterward  others 
delegated  irom  the  capital,  bent  every  resource  of  subtlety  and 
finesse  to  get  it  out  of  his  hands  and  leave  him  where  he  was, 
at  an  outer  post.  This  on  the  side  of  the  defense.  These  two 
parties,  pitted  against  each  other,  under  every  possible  form  of 
courtesy  sought  a  diplomatic  victory  —  entrance  into  Yeddo 
and  a  treaty  being  the  prizes,  if  won  by  the  American,  and  a 
final  abandonment  of  a  system  of  exclusion  and  isolation,  with 
all  their  traditional  policy  in  regard  to  foreigners,  on  the  part 
of  the  Japanese,  the  bitter  fruit  to  them  if  they  were  defeated. 
Mr.  Harris  had  '  an  autograph  letter  from  the  President,  and 
certain  matters  to  communicate  to  the  Tycoon  and  his  minis- 
ters.' 'Truly  very  important,  and  most  desirable  that  his 
Majesty  and  the  council  of  ministers  should  be  in  possession, 
but  why  should  the  Consul  General  have  the  trouble  of  going 
to  Yeddo  ?  They  had  been  especially  commissioned  to  receive 
the  letter,  and  hear  what  he  had  to  offer.'  That  could  not  be 
assented  to.  '  It  was  not  usual  to  deliver  an  autograph  letter 
from  one  Sovereign  to  another  save  by  the  hand  of  their  own 
Representative  named  for  that  purpose.  Moreover,  the  mat- 
ters he  had  to  communicate  were  of  national  importance,  and 
could  only  be  fitly  communicated  by  himself  direct  to  the  Ty- 
coon or  his  ministers.' 

*To  the  Tycoon !     Impossible ;  no  one  could  speak  or  trans- 
act business  with  the  Tycoon !' 

*  Very  sorry  to  hear  it,  for  in  that  case  the  autograph  letter 
and  accompanying  message  must  remain  undelivered,' 


106  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  CChap.  X. 

'  But  what  if  a  liigh  officer  were  especially  dispatched  from 
Yeddo  to  represent  the  Tycoon,  and  receive  the  letter  from 
the  Consul  General's  own  hands  ?' 

'An  unnecessary  trouble,  since  it  would  be  equally  impossi- 
ble for  the  Representative  of  the  United  States  to  acquit  him- 
self of  his  important  mission,  and  one  more  important  perhaps 
to  the  Government  of  Japan  than  his  own.' 

So  days  and  weeks  were  consumed,  but  somewhere  about 
the  end  of  1857  all  the  outer  defenses  were  carried,  and  Mr. 
Harris  enteied  Yeddo,  not  to  leave  it,  in  March  or  April  of 
1858,  until  he  had  framed  his  treaty,  discussing  paragraph  by 
paragraph  and  article  by  article.  The  gathering  together  of 
large  forces  by  Great  Britain  for  the  prosecution  of  their  de- 
mands on  China,  in  alliance  with  France ;  the  generally  ru- 
mored intention  of  the  two  governments,  and  also  of  Russia,  to 
send  plenipotentiaries  shortly  to  Japan,  to  open  more  effectual- 
ly the  ports  of  that  country  to  European  commerce  and  enter- 
prise, all  no  doubt  materially  tended  to  give  weight  to  the 
more  pacific  arguments  of  the  American  agent,  urging  that  the 
true  policy  of  Japan  was  no  longer  to  defer  doing,  under  the 
most  favorable  and  honorable  conditions,  without  compromis- 
ing its  dignity  or  independence,  that  which  must  come  under 
wholly  different  circumstances  before  the  year  was  out. 

And  thus  the  foundation  for  a  Commercial  Treaty  was  laid, 
by  pointing  out  to  the  Japanese  Government  that  the  time 
was  plainly  approaching  when  refusal  on  their  part  loould  be 
impossible,  for  they  would  have  the  Western  world  in  collect- 
ive strength  breaking  down  the  barriers;  and  that  one  only 
means  remained  by  which  they  might  preserve  their  free  agen- 
cy and  self-respect,  namely,  to  enter  into  a  treaty  with  the 
Representative  of  the  United  States — alone,  as  he  then  was, 
unattended  by  a  single  ship  of  war ;  and  thus,  when  other 
Powers  came  on  the  field  with  large  squadrons  (it  might  be 
with  increased  or  exaggerated  demands),  the  answer  would  be 
ready, '  Here  is  a  treaty  we  have  concluded  of  our  own  free 
will  with  one  of  the  great  Western  Powers  ;  we  are  willing  to 
enter  into  like  engagements  with  you,  but  object  to  having  dif- 
ferent relations  Avith  the  States  of  Europe.'  All  exaggerated 
or  dangerous  pretensions  to  privileges  incompatible  with  their 
dignity  or  safety  would  thus  be  put  aside,  and  without  offense 
or  danger  of  collision  ! 

From  the  moment  that  this  train  of  reasoning  or  argument 
was  understood  and  adopted  by  them,  as  appai-ently  it  was 
very  speedily,  they  saw  their  own  interest  and  dignity  would 
thus  best  be  consulted — or  acted  as  if  they  did — and  entered 


CIULP.X.J  UNEXPECTED  OBSTACLE.  197 

without  farther  debate  into  the  subject  matter  of  a  treaty  of 
amity  and  commerce. 

The  plan  of  attack  was  skillfully  designed ;  for,  whether  the 
American  Representative  was  fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind 
that  England  and  P""rance,  with  their  victorious  forces  in  the 
Peiho,  would  speedily  come  and  insist  upon  new  treaties  and 
enlarged  facilities,  or  only  regarded  the  possible  contingency 
as  a  means  to  secure  his  own  success  which  fortune  had  thrown 
in  his  way,  is  not  very  material  in  reference  to  the  result. 

This  mode  of  appealing  to  the  feelings  most  likely  to  influ- 
ence a  Japanese — national  pride  and  fears  of  aggression — and 
this  on  the  part  of  a  friend  anxious  to  spare  them  the  humili- 
ation of  having  to  yield  to  superior  force  on  the  one  hand,  or 
to  grant  unreasonable  demands  on  the  other,  was  completely 
successful  up  to  the  signature  of  the  treaty,  when  a  last  and 
most  unexpected  obstacle  stood  full  in  the  path  !  '  The  min- 
isters were  willing ;  the  Tycoon,  too,  would  yield  ;  but  a  pow- 
erful party  among  the  hereditary  Princes  and  Daimios  form- 
ing the  great  council  of  the  nation  were  still  in  a  majority,  and 
would  not  consent.'  There  were  some  six  hundred  Daimios, 
all  feudal  chiefs,  many  with  territorial  jurisdiction,  exercising 
'  la  haute  justice,'  with  power  of  life  and  death  in  their  own 
principalities,  and  no  fundamental  change  in  the  customs  of 
Japan  could  be  effected  without  their  assent,  or  at  least  that 
of  the  great  council  of  eighteen,  representing  the  Mikado  at 
Yeddo,  farther  confirmed  by  the  Mikado.  This  was  a  cruel 
check  after  such  steady  progress  and  near  approach  to  the  con- 
summation desired  —  the  honor,  for  America,  of  making  the 
first  treaty  with  Japan,  opening  the  country  to  foreign  com- 
merce. 

But  for  the  moment  the  obstacle  was  insuperable.  The  hos- 
tile majority  continued  compact  and  menacing.  'Many  had 
been  gained' — more  enlightened  men,  possibly,  who  saw  what 
their  colleagues  could  not  discern,  that  the  time  was  at  hand 
when  all  opposition  would  be  futile,  and  bring  only  the  dis- 
grace of  defeat  and  harder  terms.  Time,  therefore,  was  de- 
manded by  the  ministers,  and  a  characteristic  Eastern  argu- 
ment was  urged  in  support  and  illustration  of  the  state  of  af- 
fairs :  '  Japan  is  a  little  maiden,  full  of  promise,  but  she  is  not 
yet  matured.  If  you  listen  only  to  your  passions  and  take  her 
now,  you  will  spoil  all  the  beauty  into  which  she  will  other- 
wise ripen  for  your  greater  happiness  and  enjoyment.'  Add- 
ing, 'You  do  not  wish,  nor  can  it  be  your  interest,  to  plunge 
this  country  into  a  civil  war,  the  end  of  which  no  one  can  sec. 
Be  patient,  then,  leave  it  in  our  hands,  and  we  will  give  you  a 


198  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  X. 

promise  in  writing,  under  the  pledge  of  the  Tycoon,  that  in 
September,  at  the  latest,  the  treaty  now  endorsed  shall  be  for- 
mally concluded.'  Mr.  Harris  yielded  the  point  it  seemed  im- 
possible to  carry;  and  it  was  afterward  arranged  that  each 
should  retain  a  copy  of  the  draft  treaty  signed  by  the  other,  in 
proof  tliat  all  the  stipulations  had  been  finally  agreed  upon. 
Upon  this  the  American  negotiator  took  his  departure  for  Si- 
moda,  his  usual  place  of  residence ;  this  was,  I  think,  in  May, 
1858.  In  June,  the  allied  squadrons  were  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Peiho ;  and  on  July  27,  our  treaty  with  the  Court  of  Pekin  was 
extorted  at  the  cannon's  mouth,  opening  the  whole  length  and 
breadth  of  the  Empire,  all  the  navigable  rivers,  and  the  gates 
of  Pekin,  nearly  as  hermetically  sealed  to  foreigners  as  Yeddo 
itself  had  been  for  the  last  three  centuries. 

Short  space  was  allowed  to  intervene  between  the  signature 
of  the  treaty  and  the  arrival  of  the  United  States  frigate  Mis- 
sissippi in  the  Bay  of  Simoda  with  the  startling  news.  The 
finale  may  be  imagined.  Mr.  Harris  immediately  proceeded  to 
Kanagawa  in  another  frigate— the  'Powhatan'  turning  up,  we 
are  to  believe,  equally  fortuitously,  but  fortunately  at  the  pre- 
cise moment  it  was  wanted — nnd  Imperial  commissioners  were 
dispatched  to  meet  him.  'What  news  is  this?'  'Treaties 
have  been  signed  with  four  of  the  greatest  Powers  of  the  West, 
after  the  destruction  of  the  Chinese  batteries  by  the  English 
and  French.  The  same  four  Powers  will  in  another  month  be 
knocking  at  the  gates  of  Yeddo.  Do  you  wish  to  lose  all  the 
advantages  for  which  you  have  labored  and  risked  so  much  ?' 
'No!'  'Very  well,  then,  conclude  without  delay  your  treaty 
with  the  United  States,  already  drafted,  agreed  to,  and  signed 
on  both  sides.  Give  it  formal  execution,  and  thus  secure  your- 
selves from  less  moderate  demands,  which  may  within  the 
month  be  urged  by  other  Powers,  backed  with  imposing  squad- 
rons.' And  the  dates  were  filled  in  accordingly,  and  the  treaty 
formally  executed  on  board  of  the  'Powhatan,'  on  the  third 
day  from  Mr.  Harris's  arrival. 

Throughout  the  negotiations,  apparently  single-handed,  and 
without  any  material  support  from  his  Government,  the  Amer- 
ican diplomatic  agent  thus  surmounted  all  difiiculties  and 
proved  himself  fully  equal  to  the  occasion.  How  such  success 
was  secured,  with  the  knowledge  since  attained,  it  is  easy  to 
see ;  but  it  detracts  nothing  from  the  credit  due  to  the  strate- 
gic skill  with  which  the  negotiator  turned  the  weakness  of  the 
Japanese,  the  strength  of  his  neighbors,  and  even  his  own  want 
of  material  support  from  the  Government  he  represented,  all 
equally  to  account  for  the  success  of  his  mission !     Where  oth- 


Chap.  X.J     SECOND  TREATY  CONCLUDED.         199 

ers  might  have  seen  only  motives  of  discouragement,  he  found 
all  the  elements  of  victory.  Availing  himself  of  the  fleets  of 
the  Allies — having  none  under  the  American  flag  at  his  dis- 
posal— and  while  the  echo  of  their  guns  in  the  Peiho  and  the 
rumor  of  their  victorious  operations  were  still  in  the  ears  of 
the  Tycoon  and  his  advisers,  he  achieved  the  object  of  all  his 
labors,  and  this  at  the  very  time  when  they  seemed  least  like- 
ly to  be  either  promptly  or  successfully  brought  to  a  close; 
for,  although  a  treaty  had  been  drafted,  and  signatures  more 
or  less  informally  exchanged,  the  final  execution  had  already 
entered  into  that  dangerous  phase  in  all  Oriental  diplomacy, 

})rocrastination,  with  a  contingent  future.  Mr.  Harris  himself 
lad  returned  to  his  isolated  domicile  at  Simoda,  there  to  wait 
until  the  deferred  period  for  execution  arrived.  Who  could 
say  what  new  cause  of  delay  might  be  discovered  within  that 
interval  ?  Was  there  any  real  intention  of  keeping  faith  ?  Mr. 
Harris  may  have  thought  and  believed  there  was ;  others,  with 
a  longer  experience  than  any  one  could  then  have,  would  prob- 
ably arrive  at  a  diflferent  conclusion.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the 
weakness  and  distracted  counsels  of  Japan,  combined  Avith  vic- 
tory and  strength  on  the  opposite  shore,  was  the  diplomatist's 
opportunity,  and  well  and  promptly  he  seized  upon  it,  unques- 
tionably paving  the  way,  or  rather  macadamizing  it,  for  all 
succeeding  negotiators !  Shall  he  be  blamed  that,  having  no 
fleets  or  material  force  of  his  own  country  to  fall  back  upon, 
he  adroitly  turned  to  profit  those  of  the  Allies,  flushed  with 
victory  ?     We  may  question  the  right  to  use  it  as  a  means  of 

*  moral  pressure,'  since  that  required  that  he  should  assume 
and  attribute  to  us  views  or  intentions  that  might  not  be  ours, 
and  which  were  not  certainly  of  a  nature  to  make  us  very  fa- 
vorably looked  upon  by  Japanese  rulers ;  but  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted the  opportunity  was  very  tempting,  and  diplomatists, 
the  ablest  and  best,  are  but  mortals  after  all !  Nay,  more,  to 
a  diplomatic  agent  of  the  United  States,  it  must  have  been  pe- 
culiarly and  especially  tempting.     While  demonstrating  ihe 

*  peaceful  and  friendly  policy'  of  his  own  Government,  winch 

*  required  no  material  force,  and  kept  no  fleets  in  Eastern  seas 
to  make  aggressive  wars  on  distant  potentates  or  peoples'  (as 
other  publicans  and  sinners  did),  he  was  really  invoking  the 
effective  aid  of  the  belligerent  resources  and  prestige  which 
were  the  objects  of  reprobation.  This  bellicose  and  aggres.- 
sive  action  of  England — of  which  we  have  heard  so  much  in 
China  and  elsewhere  during  the  last  twenty  years,  whenever 
she  has  been  engaged,  at  her  cost  and  peril,  in  figliting  her  own 
battles  in  Eastern  seas — yet  scarcely  more  her  own  than  those 


200  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  \Chxt.  X. 

of  the  whole  Western  world — was  never  brought  more  deci- 
sively to  bear ;  but  this  time  it  was  in  a  new  country,  and  by 
the  apostle  of  peace — the  Representative  of  the  United  States 
in  person !  This  was  a  veritable  tour  de  maitre,  to  use  and 
turn  to  such  account  the  belligerent  Allies,  holding  them  i?i 
terrorem  over  the  Japanese,  and  to  do  this  in  a  way  that  should 
give  the  United  States  all  the  benefit  and  the  credit,  without 
any  of  the  cost,  of  gi*eat  expeditions ;  while  to  Great  Britain 
was  left  only  the  odium  of  a  reputation  at  once  bellicose  and 
exigeant.  In  the  same  quarter  a  disposition  has  more  than 
once  been  shown*  to  attribute  to  some  peculiar  pugnacity,  or 
other  vice  of  British  agents  in  Japan,  the  seeming  preference 
given  on  two  occasions  to  the  British  Legation  as  an  object  of 
murderous  attack — once  during  my  residence  in  Yeddo,  and 
once  subsequently  with  the  Charge  d' Affaires  officiating  in  my 
absence.  The  premisses  hardly  bear  out  the  inference  of  any 
exclusive  preference,  since  the  outrage  of  assassinating  those 
who  are  resident  in  Yeddo  and  attached  to  the  several  Lega- 
tions has  been  pretty  impartially  distributed.  The  Secretary 
of  the  United  States  was  slain  in  the  streets  not  far  from  his 
own  Minister's  door ;  and  the  life  of  a  servant  of  the  French 
Minister  was  attempted  at  the  Legation  gate.  Dutch  and  Rus- 
sians have  equally  been  the  objects  of  murderous  attack  at  Yo- 
kohama and  Hakodadi.  But  were  it  otherwise,  and  an  unen- 
viable preference  were  really  the  lot  of  the  British  Legation, 
might  not  this  more  naturally  be  accounted  for  by  a  reference 
to  the  pleasant  introduction,  of  a  diplomatic  kind,  which  the 
negotiations  just  detailed  must  have  supplied  ? 

Whether  success  in  negotiating  a  treaty  establishing  com- 
mercial and  diplomatic  relations  is  a  benefit  or  an  injury  to 
Japan  and  other  Powers  brought  in  contact  with  a  people  who 
their  rulers  declare  are  wholly  unfitted  and  unprepared  for  any 
such  violent  and  rapid  change  in  policy,  is  another  question  al- 
together. But  it  is  one  which  events  have  been  continually 
forcing  upon  the  Treaty  Powers  ever  since  the  opening  of  the 
ports,  and  is  yet  unsolved  in  any  very  satisfactory  or  conclusive 
manner.  This  much  is  alone  certain,  that  it  was  a  success 
which  has  borne  bitter  fruit  to  all  on  the  Japanese  side  who 
took  any  part  in  the  signature  of  the  treaty  or  its  negotiation, 
from  the  Tycoon  to  the  subordinate  secretaries  and  interpret- 
ers. Before  the  ink  was  well  dry  a  violent  reaction  seems  to 
have  taken  place  among  the  Daimios,  inimical  to  such  funda- 
mental changes,  which  swept  the  whole  of  the  actors  from  the 
scene ;  the  Tycoon  and  his  ministers  the  first,  the  one  to  his 
grave,  and  the  others  to  banishment  and  disgrace. 

*  See  official  correspondence  laid  before  Congress  in  1861-2. 


Chap.  X.]         A  CURIOUS  CHAPTER  IN  HISTORY.  OQl 

There  was  something  ominous  in  the  fact  that  each  of  the 
two  American  treaties  cost  a  reigning  Tycoon  his  life.  The 
one  fell  subsequent  to  Commodore  Perry's  tirst  visit,  and  his 
life  was  taken,  so  the  Jajjanese  generally  believe,  as  the  pen- 
alty for  admitting  any  intercourse ;  and  the  second  died  im- 
mediately after  the  signature  of  Mr.  Harris's  treaty.  A  tri- 
umph to  one  contracting  party,  but  a  signal  of  death  to  the 
other ! 

The  whole  course  of  events,  as  narrated  by  the  Japanese 
among  themselves  and  generally  accredited,  forms  a  very  curi- 
ous chapter  in  their  history,  and  throws  so  much  light  on  the 
political  state  and  organization  of  the  country,  that  it  well  de- 
serves attention.  It  may  not  be  accurate  or  strictly  true  in  all 
its  details ;  no  one  can  safely  vouch  for  that,  perhaps,  in  any 
country.  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  himself  a  principal  actor  and 
behind  the  scenes,  used  to  account  for  his  never  listenhig  to 
history  by  saying  '  that  he  knew  to  be  false,  whatever  books 
of  fiction  might  be.'  And  if  our  guarantees  for  truth  and  per- 
fect accuracy  are  deficient  in  Europe,  where  records  are  kept 
and  often  published,  what  shall  we  say  of  the  materials  of  his- 
tory in  Japan,  where  it  is  not  permitted  to  write  under  pain 
of  death  ?  Perhaps  the  prohibition  may  have  had  for  motive 
a  conviction  of  the  utter  hopelessness  of  attaining  truth !  Be 
this  as  it  may,  the  narrative,  as  it  has  reached  me  from  divers 
sources,  and  often  in  detached  portions  or  very  fragmentary 
shape,  seems  sufficiently  illustrative,  despite  all  contingent 
chances  of  inaccuracy,  to  be  worthy  of  record,  if  only  to  show 
what  a  long  chapter  of  tragic  events  the  renewal  of  foreign  re- 
lations has  opened  in  the  history  of  Japan.  Every  page  seems 
to  have  been  written  in  blood,  and  each  phase  to  have  demand- 
ed a  victim.  Of  the  number  and  identity  of  these  there  is  at 
least  no  question. 

When  Commodore  Perry  first  arrived  (in  1853),  Minamotto 
Jejoshi  had  reigned  seventeen  years  as  Tycoon.  He  is  said  to 
have  been  a  prince  of  energy  and  experience,  and  to  have  car- 
ried weight  in  the  council  of  Daimios  by  his  superior  intelli- 
gence. On  the  first  news  of  the  arrival  of  a  foreign  fleet  in 
the  forbidden  waters,  the  Daimios  severally  charged  with  the 
defense  of  that  part  of  the  coast  are  said  to  have  mustered,  in 
two  days,  10,000  men,  with  artillery,  commanded  by  three 
princes  of  large  revenue  and  consideration,  whose  names  are 
given. 

The  President's  letter,  however,  it  was  resolved  should  be 
received ;  and  a  year's  delay  was  demanded  for  time  to  assem- 
ble a  great  council  of  Daimios.     A  few  days  after  the  Tycoon 

12 


202  THREEi  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  X. 

died  suddenly.  The  following  is  said  to  be  the  palace  chroni- 
cle of  the  mode  of  his  death,  and  the  subsequent  events. 

Minamotto's  prime  minister  was  Midzouuo  Etsisen-no-Kami, 
a  stout  defender  of  old  laws  and  customs,  and  he,  it  is  said,  con- 
spired with  other  Daimios,  then  in  the  capital,  as  to  the  means 
of  saving  the  country  from  foreign  influence.  It  was  agreed 
that  the  Tycoon  should  be  poisoned,  and  some  charge  Etsiseii- 
no-Kanii  with  views  of  aggrandizement  for  himself  as  future 
regent,  tlie  Tycoon's  only  son  being  of  infirm  mind.  But  when 
the  cup  containing  the  poison  was  presented  to  the  Tycoon  hy 
one  of  the  officers  who  had  been  tampered  with,  sometli'mg 
roused  the  suspicions  of  the  destined  victim,  and  ho  threw  the 
cup  with  its  contents  into  his  attendant's  face,  who  instantly 
drew  his  sword  and  ran  him  through  the  body,  killing  himself 
immediately  afterward.  Midzouno  Etsisen  w^as  loudly  accused 
by  the  Tycoon's  followers,  and  he  also  performed  the  Hara- 
Kiru. 

Minaraotto  Yesado,  the  son  aforesaid,  succeeded  his  father, 
and  Ikomono-no-Kami  became  Regent,  that  office  being  heredi- 
tary in  his  family  whenever,  from  minority  or  other  cause,  the 
reigning  Tycoon  shall  be  incapable  of  governing.  In  the  con- 
flict of  opinions  respecting  foreign  relations,  Ikomono  is  de- 
scribed as  preserving  a  neutral  position,  and  refusing  to  pro- 
nounce a  decided  opinion  on  either  side.  His  first  act  was  to 
summon  a  great  council  to  deliberate  on  the  answer  to  be  given 
to  the  American  propositions  to  enter  into  a  treaty.  All  the 
Daimios  of  50,000  kokous  of  rice  in  revenue,  and  upward,  were 
invited  to  assist,  and  even  those  with  less,  who  were  in  any 
way  distinguished.  Many  advocated  resistance  d  Voutrance. 
At  the  head  of  these  was  the  Prince  of  Mito,  supported  by 
many  powerful  Daimios.  The  Prince  of  Kago,  with  a  revenue 
of  10,000,000  kokous,  is  reported  to  have  placed  his  hand  on 
his  sword  in  full  council,  exclaiming, '  Rather  than  consent  to 
enter  into  a  treaty,  it  were  better  to  die  fighting !'  The  Prince 
of  Mito  deemed  the  dignity  of  the  country  compromised  if  the 
subversive  changes  and  the  relations  proposed  by  the  Ameri- 
cans were  admitted,  and  advocated  the  acceptance  of  such  re- 
lations only  as  were  consistent  with  their  old  established  policy. 
It  is  difficult  to  understand  in  what  these  could  consist,  since 
that  policy  was  one  of  absolute  exclusion  to  all  save  a  few 
Dutch ;  and,  considering  that  only  two  ports  of  refuge  were 
conceded,  Simoda  and  Hakodadi,  both  perfectly  useless  for  pur- 
poses of  trade,  and  no  commerce  was  in  efiect  allowed,  what 
the  minor  concessions  could  have  amounted  to,  which  the 
Prince  of  Mito  and  his  party  w^ould  have  counseled,  it  would 
be  hard  to  say ! 


Chap.  X.]  PRINCE  OF  MITO,  203 

It  was  determined,  however,  in  view  of  the  unprepared  state 
of  the  defenses,  to  seem  to  listen,  and  to  temporize,  making 
such  treaty  only  as  might  seem  necessary  to  avoid  an  imme- 
diate declaration  of  war,  which  they  evidently  considered  the 
probable  consequence  of  any  total  denial.  We  know  the  Presi- 
dent's instructions  were  to  abstain  from  all  menace  of  war  or 
employment  of  force.  How  far  Commodore  Perry's  action 
was  calculated  to  give  a  different  idea,  we  need  not  very  close- 
ly inquire.  One  thing  is  certain,  such  was  not  the  impression 
received  by  the  Japanese. 

The  Prince  of  Mito,  it  would  appear,  had  the  idea  of  profit- 
ing by  all  this  conflict  and  confusion,  either  by  becoming  him- 
self Tycoon  or  securing  the  election  of  his  son.  One  of  the 
GosANKAY  (the  name  given  to  the  royal  house,  descended  from 
the  three  brothers  of  the  founder  of  the  existing  dynasty),  he 
had  legitimate  pretensions  in  the  event  of  a  vacancy ;  while 
the  present  occupant  had  no  son,  and  was  not  in  a  state  to  ex- 
ercise the  power  of  adopting  one  to  succeed  him.  But  it  was 
an  old  grief  of  this  branch  of  the  royal  descendants  that  they 
had  ever  been  excluded  in  favor  of  some  heir  of  the  other 
bouses,  the  Princes  of  Kiusiu  or  Owari,  when  an  election  had 
taken  place.  Moved  by  these  motives,  Mito  plotted  to  put 
himself  at  the  he.ad  of  a  powerful  body  of  the  Daimios  inimical 
to  the  new  relations  established  with  Foreign  Powers,  to  poi- 
son the  reigning  Tycoon,  and  secure  the  succession. 

When  the  second  American  treaty  negotiated  by  Mr.  Har- 
ris was  under  discussion,  it  is  supposed  he  actively  opposed  the 
final  signature ;  and  when  this  was  consummated  in  the  pre- 
cipitate manner  already  detailed,  under  pressure  of  the  an- 
nounced arrival  of  victorious  fleets  from  China  with  plenipo- 
tentiaries of  two  great  maritime  powers  of  Europe,  the  hour 
for  action  arrived,  and  the  Tycoon  had  ceased  to  live  before 
Lord  Elgin's  appearance  the  following  month  !  The  Gotairo, 
as  the  regent  is  oflScially  styled,  had  no  doubt  from  whence  the 
blow  came.  He  instantly  had  all  the  attendants  in  the  palace 
seized,  and  by  torture  wrung  from  them  confessions  crimina- 
ting the  Prince  of  Mito.  He  sent  to  the  latter  an  order  of  ban- 
ishment to  his  territories,  giving  him  to  understand  that,  if  in- 
stantly obeyed,  it  should  only  be  temporary,  and  if  resisted,  he 
should  be  charged  before  the  great  council  with  the  poisoning 
of  the  Tycoon,  for  which  the  penalty  was  crucifixion.  In  the 
event  of  his  quietly  abandoning  the  field,  it  was  farther  prom- 
ised him  that  his  crime  should  not  be  divulged.  Overawed 
by  so  much  vigor  and  determination,  or  unprepared  for  such 
prompt  action,  the  Prince  of  Mito  accepted  tlie  alternative  and 


204  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  X. 

retired,  discomfited  and  compromised,  to  his  principality.  The 
elective  council  was  immediately  convoked,  and  the  young 
Prince  of  Kiusiu,  whose  father  was  still  alive,  was  duly  elected 
Tycoon,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  Prince  of  Mito  and  his  son. 
The  latter,  unlike  this  heir  of  the  house  of  Kiusiu,  was  a  man 
of  thirty  instead  of  a  boy  of  fifteen.  But  the  minority  of  the 
former  was  no  doubt  one  of  his  recommendations,  since  it  left 
the  power  in  the  hands  of  the  Regent  Ikomono,  which  he 
promptly  exercised,  it  seems,  to  issue  a  decree  of  jorpetual 
banishment  against  the  old  Prince  of  Mito,  and  deposition  in 
favor  of  his  son.  This,  according  to  the  received  accounts,  was 
an  act  of  treachery  and  a  breach  of  faith  on  the  part  of  the  Go- 
tairo,  and  we  shall  see  later  how  it  was  avenged. 

From  causes  not  very  clearly  understood  or  explained,  there 
was  contemporaneously  a  total  change  in  the  composition  of  the 
Gorogio,  or  Great  Council  of  State,  forming  in  fact  the  cabinet 
or  government  of  the  Tycoon,  and  consisting  of  five  ministers. 
Those  in  ofiice  when  the  treaty  was  signed  were  all  disgraced, 
and  disappeared  from  the  scene,  as  well  as  nearly  all  their  sub- 
ordinates. A  complete  palace  revolution  appears  to  have  tak- 
en place,  consequent  on  the  double  event  of  the  signature  of 
the  second  of  the  American  treaties  and  the  murder  of  the 
Tycoon.  Mr.  Harris,  fortunately  perhaps  for  himself,  also  dis- 
appeared from  the  scene,  having  returned  to  his  secluded  place 
of  residence  of  Simoda  until  the  following  year,  when  he  re- 
turned to  Yeddo  at  the  same  time  as  myself,  to  take  up  his 
permanent  residence  in  the  capital. 

And  thus  were  inaugurated  the  first  two  treaties  which  For- 
eign powers  owe  to  the  United  States.  The  first  inserting  the 
wedge  of  limited  intercourse  for  objects  of  humanity ;  the  sec- 
ond splitting  open  the  rock  of  Japanese  obstruction  and  open- 
ing the  country  to  commerce — a  fit  preface  to  the  long  series 
of  tragedies  which,  as  will  be  seen,  were  destined  to  mark  the 
progress  of  foreign  relations  with  a  country  containing  so  many 
hostile  elements. 

The  hostile  party  now  came  into  power,  it  is  said,  and  have 
ever  since  remained.  Midzuo  Tsikfogono,  the  chief  of  the  min- 
istry when  I  arrived,  had  been  called  from  his  retirement  to 
enter  anew  on  the  cares  of  ofiice,  as  the  best  representative,  it 
is  to  be  assumed,  of  the  conservative,  retrograde,  or  patriotic 
party,  for  all  these  titles  may  be  laid  claim  to.  They  are  op- 
posed to  the  introduction  of  any  foreign  elements — persons, 
goods,  or  ideas — as  pregnant  with  mischief,  and  fraught  with 
danger  to  the  stability  of  the  empire.  By  some  it  is  believed 
that  there  is  a  progressive  party  in  Japan,  in  advance,  at  all 


Chap.  X.]  A  RAI^J  OF  TREATIES.  205 

events,  of  those  whom  they  stigmatize  as  ''toads  in  a  weU,^  the 
latter  being  supposed  to  see  but  a  very  small  speck  above  their 
heads  and  under  their  eyes,  and  to  enjoy  no  breadth  of  view. 
But  I  confess,  the  longer  my  experience,  the  more  doubtful  it 
has  appeared  to  me.  The  only  true  distinction,  so  far  as  we 
are  concerned,  is,  I  believe,  one  of  degree  only ;  degree,  that 
is,  of  opposition ;  and  based  rather  upon  the  relative  timidity 
or  courage  of  the  leaders  than  any  leaning  to  advanced  views. 
Those  who  are  timid  or  wary  advocate  a  temporizing  policy  to 
gain  time  for  better  preparation,  or  at  least  to  defer  the  evil 
day.  The  more  rash  or  courageous  would  fling  down  the 
gauntlet,  and,  like  the  Prince  of  Kago,  prefer  to  die  with 
swords  in  their  hands,  than  tolerate  any  longer  the  presence  of 
the  foreigner,  and  the  danger  of  change  and  revolution  which 
he  brings  inevitably  in  his  train.  The  prevision  of  the  former 
ministry,  guided  by  Mr.  Harris's  information  of  the  certain  ar- 
rival of  plenipotentiaries  from  England  and  France,  so  prompt- 
ly justified  by  the  event,  was  therefore,  to  them,  a  source  of 
safety.  For  the  new  ministry,  despite  its  retrograde  tenden- 
cies, had  to  do  what  ministries  have  sometimes  done  elsewhere 
— carry  out  the  very  policy,  as  a  matter  of  state  necessity,  which 
they  had  denounced  as  treason  or  imbecility  in  their  predeces- 
sors. Then  followed  quick  the  Russian  treaty,  and  on  the 
heels  of  Count  Poutiatine  came  Baron  Gros  and  the  French 
treaty.  Then  the  Dutch.  It  rained  treaties,  as  if  all  the  furies 
had  been  let  loose  by  an  avenging  Nemesis  on  the  heads  of 
the  foresworn  and  recalcitrant  ministry.  They  must  have  felt 
their  cup  of  bitterness  was  full  when  they  signed  the  last  of 
the  series,  and  approaching  winter  gave  them  a  promise  of  res- 
pite !  But  they  were  even  then  threatened  with  a  necessity 
to  conclude  treaties  with  other  Powers  great  and  small,  two 
of  which  are  now  already  matters  of  history.  Unhappy  polit- 
ical martyrs,  for  they  still  retained  the  seals  of  office !  Do  these 
bring  here,  as  in  other  countries,  compensations  and  advan- 
tages to  reconcile  their  holders  to  labors,  humiliations,  and  anxi- 
eties, since  men  of  wealth  and  station  can  every  where  be  found 
voluntarily  to  go  through  a  long  course  of  bitter  diet,  eating 
their  own  words,  and  reversing  the  policy  they  stormily  upheld 
when  out  of  oflice  ? 

The  dismissed  ministers  and  subordinate  functionaries  were 
still  out  and  in  disgrace.  Lord  Elgin's  arrival  simply  helped 
to  prevent  any  necessity  of  a  resort  to  the  '  happy  dispatch,'* 

*  Both  the  original  words  in  Japanese  and  the  trnnslntion  have  heen  trav- 
estied by  Europeans.  The  words  are,  'Hara  wo  kiru,'  'Belly  cut.'  The 
'  happy  dispatch'  is  a  pure  invention,  and  a  term  wholly  unknown  to  the 
Japanese. 


206  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  X. 

the  curious  title  we  give  to  their  crucial  mode  of  letting  life 
escape  by  an  opening  in  the  abdomen,  when  something  worse 
than  death  alone  remains,  if  their  existence  should  be  pro- 
longed. 

If  we  now  turn  from  the  exclusively  political  field  to  the 
general  constitution  of  the  realm  and  the  social  condition  of 
the  people  governed,  we  shall  find  ample  opportunity  for  the 
study  of  '  a  new  phase  of  humanity,'  which  Albert  Smith,  of 
pleasant  memory,  said  was  his  object  in  traveling  to  China. 
Long  isolation  has  given  to  this  branch  of  the  earth's  great 
family  a  development  which  they  may  claim  with  some  reason 
as  peculiarly  their  own.  Their  outer  life,  their  laws,  customs, 
and  institutions,  have  all  something  peculiar,  a  cachet  of  their 
own  which  may  always  be  distinguished.  It  is  neither  Chi- 
nese nor  European,  nor  can  the  type  be  said  to  be  purely  Asi- 
atic. The  Japanese  seem  rather  to  be  like  the  Greeks  of  the 
ancient  world,  forming  a  link  between  Europe  and  Asia,  and 
put  forth  claims  to  be  ranked  inferior  to  neither  race  in  some 
of  their  best  qualities,  yet  very  strangely  blending  many  of  the 
worst  characteristics  of  both.  While  we  are  acquiring  their 
language  and  preparing  to  enter  into  such  intercourse  with 
them  as  shall  permit  intimate  relations  of  a  domestic  and  social 
kind  to  be  formed,  such  alone  as  can  give  an  insight  into  the 
daily  life,  as  well  as  the  habits  of  thought  and  action  of  the 
difierent  classes,  we  can  not  do  better,  perhaps,  than  to  study 
them  in  their  outer  aspects,  as  a  preparative  to  a  profounder 
study  of  their  charcteristics  as  a  nation.  I  remember  one  day, 
in  a  conversation  on  Chinese  life,  M.  Thiers  observing,  in  reply 
to  a  remark  elicited  by  the  various  information  he  appeared  to 
have  been  at  some  pains  to  collect  respecting  China, '  that  the 
life  and  civilization  of  the  Chinese  had  always  greatly  interest- 
ed him,  from  its  bearing  on  '■'•  V histoire  de  V esprit  humainP'' 
And  no  doubt  the  study  of  any  distinct  branch  of  the  human 
family  in  its  development,  progress,  and  resulting  civilization, 
is  one  of  great  interest  to  the  philosophic  mind.  Peculiarly  so 
as  regards  the  Chinese  and  Japanese,  perhaps  from  the  fact  of 
their  being  the  only  two  of  the  Asiatic  nations  that  have  shown 
any  aptitude  during  the  last  ten  centuries  for  a  higher  civiliza- 
tion than  belongs  to  the  nomad  tribes.  The  Indian  race  in  far 
remote  ages,  and  the  Arabs  subsequently,  have  left  in  their 
history  and  architecture,  their  literature,  and  their  systems  of 
philosophy  and  religion,  records  of  a  civilization  and  mental 
development  of  no  mean  order;  but  with  them  the  traditions 
of  the  past  alone  remain,  and  their  present  development  is  ap- 
parently of  a  very  inferior  kind.     Not  so  with  either  Chinese 


Chap.  X.]  JAPANESE  CIVILIZATION.  207 

or  Japanese ;  they  are  to  this  day,  as  they  have  been  for  the 
last  two  thousand  years,  the  former  certainly,  if  not  the  latter, 
highly  civilized  and  with  considerable  intellectual  culture.  In 
the  industrial  arts  their  progi'ess  in  remote  ages  was  such  as  to 
leave  all  the  Indo-Germanic  races  peopling  Europe  far  behind, 
and  even  at  this  day  they  yet  excel  us  in  many  things.  In  arts 
and  manufactures  we  have,  upon  the  whole,  far  outstripped 
them  during  the  last  century ;  and  in  art,  properly  so  called, 
always ;  for,  amid  many  peculiarities,  none  is  more  strikingly 
characteristic  of  both  these  races  than  the  absence  of  all  artist- 
ic power  or  development  of  the  highest  kind.  Beyond  a  per- 
fection of  color  in  their  porcelains,  and  graceful  forms  in  their 
bronzes,  they  have  done  little  that  will  bear  comparison  or 
close  examination.  Yet  a  certain  graphic  power,  as  I  will 
show  more  particularly  hereafter,  the  Japanese  possess  in  no 
mean  degree.  But  of  art,  not  only  the  '  high  art,'  in  praise 
and  pursuit  of  which  poor  Haydon  wasted  so  much  breath 
and  canvas,  and  at  last  a  life,  cast  away  in  bitterness  and  disap- 
pointment, but  every  other  form — music,  painting,  sculpture, 
and  poetry,  are  all  yet  in  their  infancy,  and  seem  incapable  of 
advance.  As  regards  the  Chinese,  and  the  same  remark  ap- 
plies to  the  Japanese,  their  music  is  without  melody,  their 
landscapes  without  perspective,  light,  or  shade ;  their  figures 
without  drawing,  a  mere  gdchis  of  crude  colors  and  grotesque 
forms,  dancing  in  mid-air  without  ground  to  rest  on,  and  only 
saved  from  being  utterly  contemptible  by  a  certain  freedom 
and  power  in  the  outline  and  expression.  So  again  in  archi- 
tecture, a  tent -like  house,  sometimes  one  superimposed  upon 
the  other  in  two  or  three  stories,  with  grotesque  curves  and 
twisted  borders  to  the  roofs,  is  the  extent  of  their  architectural 
achievements.  No,  I  wrong  them.  These  300,000,000  of  the 
human  race,  moulded  into  one  nationality  by  identity  of  origin 
and  a  uniform  written  language  for  more  than  2000  years, 
have  given  to  the  world  as  their  contribution  to  architecture 
the  Pagoda,  which  not  only  has  a  claim  to  originality,  but  fair 
pretensions  to  admiration  for  lightness  and  grace,  though  far 
inferior  to  its  Indian  or  Arabic  prototype,  the  minaret.  Yet 
this  people,  600  years  B.C.,  when  Greece  was  in  its  palmy  days, 
and  gave  to  all  posterity  a  Socrates,  a  Plato,  and  an  Aristotle, 
and  the  rest  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  now  civilized  world  were 
little  better  than  painted  savages  or  wandering  freebooters 
and  pirates,  could  boast  philosophers  as  great  in  Confucius  and 
Mencius,  industrial  arts  wholly  unknown  even  to  the  polished 
Greek,  porcelain  and  enamel,  and  silk  fabrics  for  which  a  Ro- 
man Senator  would  give  their  weight  in  gold.    The  art  of 


208  THREE  YEAKS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  X. 

printing,  and  it  is  tolerably  certain  both  the  compass  and  gun- 
powder were  equally  known  to  them — the  great  instruments 
of  all  modern  progress.  These  seem  strange  anomalies  in  the 
history  of  civilization  well  calculated  to  arrest  attention.  As 
it  is  not  a  history  of  China,  however,  nor  even  of  Japan,  which 
I  propose  to  write,  we  will  turn  to  other  and  more  every-day 
matters.  Yet  it  may  be  well,  even  in  turning  to  other  fields, 
to  remember  that  the  most  casual  observation  of  the  manners, 
habits,  and  institutions  of  one  of  these  long-isolated  races  has 
a  bearing  upon  the  higher  questions  of  social  and  mental  prog- 
ress, and  may  incidentally  throw  some  light  upon  problems 
which  the  peculiarities  of  a  persistent  and  monotonous  civiliza- 
tion through  so  many  successive  ages  imavoidably  suggest. 
Long  passed  in  the  race  by  the  younger  progeny  of  Europe, 
both  Japanese  and  Chinese  must  now  be  content  to  sit  and 
learn,  accepting  the  place  of  pupils,  though  once  they  were  so 
capable  of  being  teachers.  The  latter  can  still  boast  of  popu- 
lation and  area  far  exceeding  the  widest  limits  ever  attained 
by  rival  races,  and  in  some  few  things  (the  inheritance  of  for- 
mer greatness)  a  still  surviving  superiority.  We  can  not  to 
this  day,  I  believe,  produce  a  piece  of  China  crape  amid  all  the 
marvels  and  variety  of  textile  fabrics  our  looms  tm-n  out. 
The  Japanese  have  silk  and  crape  textile  fabrics  also  which  I 
doubt  exceedingly  the  power  of  our  most  skilled  workmen  to 
imitate.  Neither  can  we  rival  their  beautiful  enamel  vases, 
or  mend  a  hole  in  an  iron  kettle,  with  all  our  discoveries  and 
appliances,  as  they  can  with  only  a  little  chai'coal  stove  in  the 
street  and  a  blowpipe ;  and  these  are  all  things  familiar  to  the 
Chinese,  though  something  of  the  art  of  enameling  may  have 
been  lost  in  the  dust  of  ages. 

Into  the  history  of  the  Japanese  nation  and  the  modifications 
which  its  political  constitution  has  successively  undergone,  I 
do  not  propose  to  enter;  for  although  to  a  student  of  national 
life  and  character  it  is  needful  these  should  be  known  and  oft- 
en borne  in  mind  in  drawing  general  conclusions,  the  briefest 
sketch  may  suffice  to  give  the  casual  reader  all  the  information 
which  he  requires.  So  many  compilations  from  the  old  Dutch 
authorities  have  appeared  in  a  popular  form  recently,  that  the 
leading  features  of  Japanese  history  are  pretty  generally  known 
already.  That  the  Mikado  is  the  hereditary  sovereign  of  the 
empire,  the  descendant  of  a  long  and  uninterrupted  line  of  sov- 
ereigns of  the  same  dynasty,  and  the  only  sovereign  de  jure 
recognized  by  all  Japanese  from  the  Tycoon  to  the  lowest  beg- 
gar— a  true  sovereign  in  all  the  legal  attributes  of  sovereign- 
ty, and  that  the  Tycoon  receives  investiture  from  him  as  his 


Chap.  X.]  MAYOR  OF  THE  PALACE.  209 

Lieutenant  or  Generalissimo,  and  as  such  only,  the  head  of  the 
Executive  is  known  to  most  readers  of  the  present  day.  True, 
the  Mikados  have  been  shorn  of  much  of  their  power  since 
Yoritomo,  in  1143,  profiting  by  civil  commotions  among  the 
princes  of  the  land,  and  armed  with  power  as  Generalissimo 
to  humble  these  turbulent  chiefs,  only  suppressed  the  troubles 
to  arrogate  to  himself  greater  part  of  the  sovereign  power  un- 
der the  title  given  by  a  grateful  master  of  Ziogun.  Another 
Pepin  d'Huristal  and  Mayor  of  the  palace,  he  did  not  care  to 
dethrone  the  descendant  of  an  illustrious  line  of  emperors,  and 
was  content  with  holding  the  reins  and  transmitting  the  same 
privileges  to  his  descendants.  And  so  the  power  continued 
divided  in  great  degree,  the  shadow  from  the  substance,  until 
later,  toward  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  a  peasant's 
son  and  favorite  attendant  of  the  actual  Generalissimo,  best 
known  in  Japanese  history  by  the  name  he  afterward  assumed 
of  laiko  Sama,  raised  himself  apparently  by  great  abilities  as 
well  as  daring  to  the  seat  of  power  on  his  master's  death,  and 
stripped  the  reigning  Mikado  of  the  last  remnants  of  secular 
power.  Since  that  time  the  successive  Emperors  or  Mikados 
are  brought  into  the  world,  and  live  and  die  within  the  pre- 
cincts of  their  court  at  Miaco,  the  boundaries  of  which  they 
never  pass  during  a  whole  life.  Is  it  possible  to  conceive  a 
less  desirable  destiny  ?  But  the  Zioguns  or  Tycoons,  as  they 
are  styled  in  European  Treaties,*  have  long  been  undergoing 
a  somewhat  analogous  process,  under  which  all  substantial 
power  has  been  transferred  from  them  to  the  principal  Daimios 
or  Princes  who  form  a  Great  Council  of  State,  and  whose 
nominee  the  Tycoon  himself  has  become,  as  well,  I  believe,  as 
all  his  chief  ministers  or  councilors.  They  exercise,  if  they  do 
not  claim,  the  right  of  removing  both  Tycoon  and  ministers, 
and  a  voice  potential  in  all  aifairs  of  state.  For  legislative 
changes  even  the  almost  forgotten  Mikado  must  indeed  give 
his  consent,  never  of  course  refused  when  any  unanimity  pre- 
vails. So  much  was  apparently  known  in  the  days  of  Koemp- 
fcr,  and  published  by  him,  but  when  the  treaty  with  America 
w^as  concluded,  as  we  have  seen,  many  things  took  place  not 
only  highly  illustrative  of  the  times  and  the  men  in  Japan,  but 
throwing  some  new  light  on  the  balance  of  political  power  in 
the  State. 

*  This  title  is  involved  in  some  obscurity.  It  does  not  seem  to  date  far- 
ther back  than  Commodore  Perry's  treaty  in  1854,  is  hardly  known  by  the 
Japanese,  and  attributable  to  the  pedantry  of  a  i)receptor  of  the  Ziogun, 
learned  in  Chinese,  who  invented  or  coined  a  title  for  the  occasion,  composed 
of  two  Chinese  words,  Tai  and  Koon  or  Kun,  signifying  Great  Lord. 


210  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  X. 

The  Mikado  of  the  day  is  the  exact  type  of  the  last  descend- 
ant of  Clovis,  sitting '  sad  and  solitary,  eiieminate  and  degener- 
ate,' doomed  only  to  wield  '  a  barren  sceptre,'  and  sigh  away  a 
burdensome  and  useless  existence  of  mock  pageantry;  never 
permitted  to  pass  the  gates  of  his  prison-palace.  It  is  related 
that  some  years  ago  one  of  those  fearful  and  all-devouring  fires, 
for  which  the  great  imperial  cities  of  Miaco,  Osaca,  and  Yeddo 
enjoy  a  most  unenviable  reputation,  drove  the  inmates  even  of 
the  Dairi*  out  of  the  sacred  precincts,  the  only  choice  being 
that  of  the  celebrated  King  of  Aragon — of  moving  or  being 
burned  alive.  Rigid  as  the  etiquette  of  the  Dairi  is  held  to  be, 
it  appears  that  it  melted  before  the  fire  of  a  vast  city  in  flames ; 
and  His  Sacred  Majesty,  after  escaping  to  one  temple  in  the  en- 
virons, had  to  flee  to  a  second,  and,  on  his  way,  to  cast  himself 
from  his  bullock-car  and  take  to  his  feet,  under  penalty  of  being 
burned  after  all.  One  can  not  help  feeling  that  in  all  probabil- 
ity this  escape,  with  all  the  change,  movement,  and  excitement, 
must  have  formed  by  far  the  pleasantest,  if  not  the  only  agree- 
able hours  he  knew  throughout  his  whole  existence.  How  his 
august  person,  too  sacred  to  be  exposed  to  the  vulgar  gaze  of 
his  subjects,  was  restored  to  its  pristine  sanctity  after  that 
midnight  rush  and  long  tramp  along  the  dusty  roads,  Japanese 
wiiters  have  not  told  us. 

This  double  machinery  of  a  titular  Sovereign  who  only  reigns, 
and  a  Lieutenant  of  the  empire  who  only  governs,  and  does  woi 
reign,  from  generation  to  generation,  is  certainly  something  very 
curious ;  and  by  long  continuance  it  seems  to  have  led  to  a  du- 
plicate system  such  as  never  existed  in  any  other  part  of  the 
world,  carried  out  to  almost  every  detail  of  existence.  Every  of- 
fice is  doubled ;  every  man  is  alternately  a  watcher  and  watched. 
Not  only  the  whole  administrative  machinery  is  in  duplicate, 
but  the  most  elaborate  system  of  check  and  counter-check,  on 
the  most  approved  Machiavellian  principle,  is  here  developed 
with  a  minuteness  and  perfection,  as  regards  details,  difiicult  at 
first  to  realize.  As  upon  all  this  is  grafted  a  system  of  more 
than  Oriental  mendacity,  one  feels  launched  into  a  world  of 
shadows  and  make-believes  hard  to  grapple  with  in  the  prac- 
tical business  of  life.  Of  their  mendacity  and  cynical  views 
respecting  it  I  had  many  illustrations.  One  of  these  official 
gentry,  upon  a  particular  occasion,  having  been  found  by  a  For- 
eign Minister  in  deliberate  contradiction  with  himself,  was 
asked,  somewhat  abruptly,  perhaps,  how  he  could  reconcile  it 
to  his  conscience  to  utter  such  palpable  untruths?  With  per- 
fect calmness  and  self-possession  he  replied, '  I  told  you  last 
*  The  name  given  to  the  Court. 


Chap.  X.]  GREAT  Jl^UDATORIES.  211 

month  that  such  and  such  a  tiling  had  been  done,  and  now  I 
tell  you  the  thing  has  not  been  done  at  all.  I  am  an  officer 
whose  business  it  is  to  carry  out  the  instructions  I  receive,  and 
to  say  what  I  am  told  to  say.  What  have  I  to  do  with  its 
truth  or  falsehood  ?  This  must  be  pleasant  hearing  to  those 
whose  business  lies  with  officials;  but  perhaps  the  chief  differ- 
ence in  the  manners  and  customs  of  officials  and  diplomatists 
at  the  two  extremities  of  the  great  Continent  may,  after  all,  be 
more  in  forms  than  in  things !  In  Europe,  are  not  official  un- 
truths also  told  now  and  then  ?  (some  people  think  systematic- 
ally)— and  unblushingly  enough  too — only  it  is  not  considered 
right  to  avow  the  fact,  with  the  same  cynical  indifference  to 
what  may  be  thought  either  of  it  or  the  avowal. 

To  return  to  the  Tycoon  and  the  government  of  the  early 
Middle  Ages,  with  its  Suzerain  and  Feudatories,  its  fiefs  and  a 
phantom  king,  with  hereditary  Mayors  of  the  palace,  and  Chiefs 
with  10,000  retainers,  each  one  holding  himself  as  good  as  the 
Tycoon,  who  must  live  in  constant  dread  of  open  revolt  or  se- 
cret assassination,  what  a  pleasant  state  of  existence  for  all 
parties  it  reveals !  Each  of  these  territorial  magnates  or  great 
Daimios  is  practically  independent  of  the  Tycoon  when  within 
his  own  territory,  with  power  of  life  and  death  over  all  his  sub- 
jects and  dependents.  When  at  Nagasaki,  I  heard  upon  good 
authority  a  history  of  an  incident  yet  fresh  in  the  memory  of 
every  one,  highly  illustrative  both  of  this  fact  and  the  state  of 
feeling  as  regards  foreigners  and  Japanese  honor.  Two  of  the 
retainers  of  an  officer,  a  subject  of  the  Prince  of  Fizen,  got  into 
a  quarrel  with  some  foreigners  in  the  street,  and  were  disarmed 
after  drawing  their  swords.  This  reached  the  Prince's  ears, 
and  so  highly  incensed  him,  that  he  sent  instant  orders  to  his 
officer  to  have  them  beheaded  for  the  disgrace  they  had  brought 
on  themselves  and  their  Prince  in  permitting  themselves  to  be 
disarmed  by  foreigners.  It  was  said  the  Prince  had  a  pique 
against  his  officer,  and  was  not  sorry  thus  to  avenge  himself; 
but,  be  this  as  it  may,  the  men  lost  their  heads,  and  were  decapi- 
tated just  outside  of  Nagasaki,  where  the  Tycoon's  jurisdiction 
ceases.  An  imperial  passport  will  not  secure  an  intruder's  life, 
and  each  one  of  these  Barons  is  capable  of  giving  the  answer 
Hu^h  Capet  provoked  by  reminding  a  disobedient  vassal  of  his 
duties,  and  asking  '  who  made  him  count  ?'  '  Who  made  you 
king  ?'  was  the  defiant  reply.  And  therefore,  to  keep  such  bold 
and  independent  lords  in  some  subjection,  Taiko-sama  insisted 
on  their  spending  six  months  of  every  year  in  his  capital  at 
Yeddo,  where  they  would  be  under  his  jurisdiction  (though 
limited,  even  within  his  moated  city) ;  and  when  they  returned 


212  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  X. 

to  their  territories  he  kept  their  wives  and  children  hostages. 
Thus,  it  seems,  a  farther  pleasant  state  of  mutual  love  and  con- 
fidence must  be  perpetuated  between  the  rival  powers,  heredit- 
ary Tycoon,  and  hereditary  feudal  chiefs  or  princes.  And  thus 
is  explained  the  enormous  extent  of  the  official  quarters  of  the 
city  within  a  double  enciente  of  glacis,  wall,  and  moat ;  and 
whole  streets  with  moated  houses,  displaying  a  frontage  of  a 
thousand  feet  or  more.  These  form,  as  already  explained,  au 
outer  screen  to  a  large  court-yard,  furnishing  ranges  of  apart- 
ments for  retainers  and  their  families,  while  fine  and  massive- 
looking  gates  of  bronze  and  wood,  with  high  roofs  and  armo- 
rial bearings,  mark  those  which  are  the  property  of  the  Daimios 
or  higher  class  of  nobles.  Nothing,  perhaps,  is  more  striking 
to  the  eye  of  a  stranger,  on  first  penetrating  through  the  com- 
mercial part  of  the  city  into  the  official  quarter,  than  the  vast 
dimensions  of  all  these  residences  of  the  feudal  princes.  Many 
of  the  streets  are  at  least  a  hundred  feet  wide;  the  fronts  of 
houses,  that  is,  the  one-storied  range  of  court-yard  buildings, 
sometimes  extend  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  mile ;  and  behind  lie 
garden  and  parade-grounds,  while  beautiful  timber  can  be  seen 
towering  above,  giving  a  semi-regal  air  to  the  whole  quarter. 
No  business  is  ever  seen  here.  Nothing  but  retainers  are  ever 
visible,  often  with  bow  and  arrows  slung,  and  all  with  the  ar- 
morial cognizance  of  their  masters  worked  on  the  back  and 
sleeves  of  their  tunic.  Occasionally  a  guard  may  be  met  with 
musket  and  bayonet,  which,  if  they  did  not  come  from  European, 
workshops,  would  to  all  appearance  have  done  the  best  no  dis- 
credit. But  they  are  all,  I  have  been  informed,  of  Dutch  manu- 
facture. One  would  think  a  score  or  two  of  these  great  hered- 
itary chiefs,  princes  in  their  own  right,  each  with  five  or  ten 
thousand  armed  retainers  within  his  town-house  and  grounds, 
would  be  but  dangerous  guests  to  the  Tycoon,  brought  as  they 
are  under  dui'ance,  or  at  least  compulsion,  by  the  ruling  power, 
to  eat  their  substance  away  from  their  estates  and  sources  of 
revenue.  Still,  this  same  arrangement  of  check  and  counter- 
check has  been  in  existence  for  many  generations,  without,  it 
would  seem,  any  serious  attempt  to  overthrow  the  government- 
al system.  Perhaps  this  is  to  be  explained  by  the  fact,  already 
referred  to,  that  power  has  passed  in  no  small  degree  from  the 
Tycoon's  hands,  as  it  formerly  did  from  the  Mikados',  and  now 
resides  chiefly  in  an  executive  Council  of  State,  consisting  of 
five  ministei's,  and  these  again  held  in  no  small  check,  if  not  in 
subservience,  by  the  Daimios  ajid  Feudal  chiefs  of  the  higher 
order,  amounting  to  some  360.  Although  these  do  not  actually 
form  a  chamber  of  lords,  nor  assemble  in  a  body  at  stated  pe- 


Chap.X.]  the  DAIMIOS  and  the  tycoon.  213 

riods,  nothing  legislative,  it  is  said,  can  be  done  without  their 
assent  obtained,  after  they  have  been  convened  to  meet  and  de- 
liberate. It  does  not  appear  that  they  interfere  overtly  with 
the  executive  rule  of  the  empire,  it  being  recognized  as  the 
proper  business  of  the  Tycoon  and  his  council  of  ministers  to 
apply  and  cause  to  be  respected  all  existing  laws  and  customs. 
They  hold  themselves  too  high  to  demean  themselves  by  taking 
part  in  the  administration,  or  holding  oflSce  under  the  Tycoon, 
feut  neither  the  Tycoon  nor  the  ministers,  separately  or  col- 
lectively, can  venture  upon  a  change  in  these  laws  and  customs 
without  their  sanction,  and  a  farther  confirmation  by  the  phan- 
tom sovereign  of  Miaco,  who,  shut  up  for  life  within  its  garden 
walls,  is  occasionally  recalled  to  a  consciousness  of  an  outer 
world  by  being  required  to  give  his  authority  for  some  legis- 
lative action  or  fundamental  change  of  which  he  can  know 
nothing.  I  do  not  hear  that  it  was  ever  refused,  until  this  re- 
cent affair  of  the  treaties ;  why  should  it  be  ?  What  can  it 
matter  to  him,  poor  recluse,  how  they  govern  or  misgovern  an 
empire  only  in  mockery  called  his  ? 

In  the  mean  time,  between  the  Mikado  who  nominally  wields 
the  sceptre — the  Tycoon,  a  youth  who  no  less  nominally  gov- 
erns the  kingdom,  and  is  but  fourth  in  rank  in  the  Japanese 
red  book,  for  three  of  the  Mikado's  officers  take  precedence, 
and  the  Daimios  great  and  small,  those  with  a  million  kokous* 
of  rice  for  their  territorial  revenue,  and  those  with  60,000  and 
less,  who  are  only  nominally  feudatories — the  administrative 
machinery  of  the  realm  seems  to  be  kept  in  working  order ! 
and  this,  whether  Tycoons  die  peaceably  in  their  beds  (on 
their  mats  it  should  be  written),  or  by  the  hand  of  a  conspira- 
tor. Along  the  broad  ramparts  of  the  moated  enceinte  with- 
in which  the  Tycoon,  by  a  strange  retributive  justice,  as  has 
been  remarked,  seems  in  these  days  quite  as  much  a  cipher  and 
a  prisoner  as  the  virtually  deposed  Mikados,  these  ruling  class- 
es may  be  studied  any  day,  in  their  outer  lineaments  at  least. 
They  are  often  to  be  seen,  either  on  horseback  or  in  norimon, 
going  or  returning  to  the  Tycoon's  palace.  First  approaches 
a  kind  of  standard-bearer,  with  a  tall  staff  or  lance,  or  it  may 
be  two  or  three,  pointed  in  steel,  and  with  something  not  un- 
like a  fleur-de-lis  covering  the  blade,f  as  an  emblem  of  rank  and 

*  A  measure  equivalent  to  about  100  lbs.,  and  valued,  on  an  average,  at 
from  ten  to  twelve  itziboos  (say  fifteen  shillings).  In  the  Appendix  will  be 
found  a  tabular  list  of  the  Daimios  and  their  respective  revenues,  capitals, 
etc. ;  also  a  translation  of  the  Yeddo  red  book  of  the  government  and  admin- 
istrative hierarchy  of  the  Tycoon's  government.     See  Appendix  D. 

t  Another  custom  showing  the  dangerous  eh-mciit^  it  must  have  contained 
at  some  former  iH-'rioii,  if  not  now,  is  that  of  never  Hp])earing  with  any  bared 
weapon,  .<>]K.>Hr  or  sword,  that  b<'ing  held  to  be  a  declaration  of  war. 


214  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XI. 

authority ;  these  vary  in  form  according  to  the  dignity.  Then 
a  caparisoned  horse,  led  by  two  grooms ;  a  squad  of  retainers, 
with  tlie  armorial  bearings  of  their  lord  embroidered  on  their 
back  and  sleeves  follows ;  and  the  great  man  himself  seated, 
or  rather  doubled  up,  in  his  norimon,  comes  next,  with  officers 
on  each  side.  After  the  great  man  come  bearers  of  covers  for 
his  norimon,  if  it  should  rain ;  trunks  with  his  wardrobe,  should 
he  wish  to  change ;  a  large  umbrella,  if  it  should  chance  to  rain ; 
occasionally,  more  led  horses  and  a  few  attendants  on  horse- 
back, and  then  a  detachment  of  archers,  matchlock  men,  and 
inferior  followers  with  one  sword  only.  And  so  passes  on  his 
way  the  Dairaio,  meditating,  it  may  well  be,  on  the  sudden  and 
strange  revolution  in  his  country  which  has  brought  the  for- 
eigner once  more  to  the  Japanese  shores,  and  even  into  the 
streets  and  thoroughfares  of  the  capital,  with  the  laws  of  Gon- 
gen  Sama,  the  great  founder  of  the  existing  dynasty,  still  de- 
nouncing as  high  treason,  with  death  for  the  penalty,  any  one 
harboring  a  foreigner  within  the  dominions  of  the  Tycoon,  and 
still  enjoining  all  good  and  loyal  subjects  to  slay  and  extermin- 
ate any  of  the  hated  race  who  may  ever  venture  to  desecrate 
the  sacred  soil  of  Niphon  by  their  presence !  This  law,  it  is 
very  certain,  has  never  been  repealed,  and  by  it  we  are  outlaws 
in  the  land.  Any  one  may  slay  us,  therefore,  and  plead  in 
justification  one  of  the  statute  laws  of  the  empire!  A  curious 
state  of  affairs  this,  where  a  large  class  of  nobles  and  retainers 
dwell  side  by  side  with  foreigners  whom  they  hate.  What 
but  murders  and  butcheries  can  possibly  come  of  such  a  state 
of  things  ?  It  must  be  quite  evident  that  either  the  relative 
status  of  the  foreigner  and  the  armed  classes  must  be  altered, 
or  we  shall  be  compelled  to  abandon  the  capital,  and  accept  a 
wholly  different  position  in  the  country  to  that  which  was  stip- 
ulated for  by  existing  treaties. 


CHAPTER  XL 

First  Bloodshed. — Arrival  of  Count  MouraviefF  Amoorsky  with  a  Russian 
Squadron. — An  Officer  and  two  of  the  Sailors  butchered  in  the  Streets  of 
Yokohama. — European  Diplomacy  and  Eastern  Policy. 

The  British  and  American  Legations  had  been  established 
in  Yeddo  some  six  weeks — left  to  themselves,  as  I  have  said, 
to  make  their  way  as  they  best  could,  without  a  pendant  of 
either  nation  in  the  Japanese  waters,  when  Count  Mouravieff 


Chap.  XI.]  RUDENESS  AND  INSXH.T.  ^15 

Araoorsky  arrived  with  a  squadron  often  vessels-  As  Gov- 
ernor General  of  Siberia,  and  the  territories  recently  torn  from 
the  Chinese  in  Manchouria,  he  was  supposed  to  have  paid  a 
visit  to  Yeddo  for  the  purpose  of  settling  the  joint  occupation 
of  Sagalien,  a  large  island  off  the  Manchourian  coast,  hitherto 
in  the  joint  occupation  of  Chinese  and  Japanese. 

Previous  to  this  arrival  affairs  had  been  going  on,  if  not  very 
satisfactorily,  at  least  with  no  more  serious  difficulties  than 
might  perhaps  have  been  reasonably  anticipated  with  an  East- 
ern people  and  a  government  so  long  isolated  from  the  rest  of 
the  world. 

The  currency  question,  after  a  long  struggle,  had  ended  in 
the  Japanese  Government  giving  way,  and  withdrawing  for 
the  present  the  obnoxious  new  coin.  The  Consuls  were  lo- 
cated at  Kanagawa,  and  a  right  of  road  had  been  secured  un- 
der a  system  of  passports.  Even  as  regarded  a  site  at  Kana- 
gawa for  the  merchants,  there  were  not  wanting  indications 
that  on  this  point  also  the  government  was  prepared  to  yield. 

To  counterbalance  these  material  advantages  gained,  a  good 
deal  of  hostile  feeling  seemed  ready  for  manifestation  when- 
ever occasion  served.  Mr.  Heuskin,  the  Secretary  of  the  Amer- 
ican Legation,  had  been  more  than  once  assaulted  by  some  of 
the  Sam&iirai,  or  two-sworded  retainers  of  the  Daimios ;  and 
he  had  been  repeatedly  mobbed  and  molested  when  attempt- 
ing to  pass  through  a  populous  quarter  of  the  city,  near  to  the 
celebrated  Nipon  Bas,  a  bridge  across  a  river  from  whence  all 
the  statute  measurements  on  the  road,  from  one  end  of  the 
enipire  to  the  other,  are  taken. 

Various  minor  acts  of  rudeness  and  insult  had  also  fallen  to 
the  share  of  the  British  Legation.  But  as  regarded  the  mob- 
bing and  pelting,  I  made  a  vigorous  protest  on  August  9  of 
this  year  (1859),  declaring  that  the  Japanese  Government 
would  be  held  responsible  if  they  permitted  such  hostile  acts 
on  the  part  of  the  populace.  The  concluding  paragraphs  so 
perfectly  describe  our  actual  position  at  the  time  that  I  can 
not  do  better  than  transcribe  them : 

'  Finally,  I  come  to  the  state  of  affairs  here,  at  the  capital 
and  seat  of  government.  Two  Foreign  Representatives  only 
are  here,  with  half  a  dozen  gentlemen  attached  to  their  Mis- 
sions. They  have  been  sent  in  accordance  with  treaties,  and 
have  trusted  themselves  alone  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  popula- 
tion, without  ships  of  war  or  other  protection  than  the  loyalty 
and  good  faith  of  that  government,  and  the  presumed  respect 
of  Japanese  people  for  their  own  laws,  and  the  mutual  obliga- 
tions of  States. 


216  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XI. 

'  Do  your  Excellencies  know  how  this  coniBdence  on  our  part 
has  been  met  ?  No  officer  of  the  Missions  of  either  country, 
Great  Britain  or  the  United  States,  can  walk  out  of  their  offi- 
cial residence  without  risk  of  rudeness,  offense,  and  latterly — 
more  especially  latterly — violence  of  the  most  wanton  and  de- 
termined character.  Stones  are  thrown,  blows  are  struck, 
swords  are  drawn  on  gentlemen  passing  along  the  great  thor- 
oughfares inoffensively  and  peaceably,  offering  neither  offense 
nor  provocation  to  any  one.  I  hear  that  a  few  days  ago  the 
American  Secretary  of  Legation,  Mr.  Heuskin,  was  attacked 
deliberately,  and  struck  a  violent  blow  while  slowly  walking 
his  horse  on  the  road  ;  and  this  not  by  a  coolie,  or  even  a 
drunkard,  as  far  as  could  be  observed,  but  one  of  "  those  offi- 
cers bearing  swords."  A  day  or  two  later,  I  farther  hear,  he 
and  the  Consul  of  Holland,  who  was  in  his  company,  were  as- 
sailed in  the  centre  of  the  town,  and  in  open  day,  with  stones ; 
and  not  by  idle  boys — not  by  one,  but  hundreds  of  men — not 
for  a  moment  either,  but  persistently  for  a  considerable  time, 
two  officials  being  present  at  the  time,  and  stirring  no  hand  to 
put  a  stop  to  such  an  outrage.  My  own  staff  have  complained 
to  me  of  insolence  and  rudeness  experienced  in  their  walks, 
and  not  always  from  common  people,  but  officers ;  and  some- 
times stones  have  been  thrown,  without  the  shadow  of  a  pre- 
text, by  provocation  or  offense,  offered  on  their  part ;  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  always  from  behind  their  assailants  come.  It  ap- 
pears they  do  not  deem  it  inconsistent  with  a  reputation  for 
courage  to  attack  perfectly  inoffensive  and  unarmed  strangers 
walking  alone  in  their  streets  (under  safeguard  only  of  the 
good  disposition  of  the  population  and  the  laws  of  their  coun- 
try), and  think  it  no  disparagement  to  their  courage,  and  no 
evidence  of  cowardice,  to  steal  from  behind  to  throw  these 
missiles,  or,  backed  by  a  crowd,  to  attack  by  dozens  a  single 
stranger. 

'  These  outrages  can  only  be  considered  as  a  reproach  and  a 
scandal  to  any  city  where  all  the  powers  of  a  government  are 
concentrated  and  available  for  the  maintenance  of  order,  I 
pray  your  Excellencies  to  allow  me  for  a  moment  to  draw 
your  sei'ious  attention  to  some  leading  facts  connected  with 
such  acts,  if  not  the  inferences  to  which  they  lead.  This  de- 
meanor of  the  population  was  not  observable  on  the  first  ar- 
rival of  the  Foreign  Missions  last  month  ;  they  have  gradually 
become  more  noticeable;  while  latterly  each  day  seems  to 
bring  a  new  instance,  with  accession  of  violence  and  aggrava- 
ting circumstances. 

'  Whence  is  this  ?    As  regards  my  own  Mission  I  can  vouch 


Chap.  XI.]  INSULTS  AND  OUTRAGES.  217 

for  the  absence  of  all  pretext  or  shadow  of  justification,  even 
ill  their  demeanor,  for  any  display  either  of  ill  will  or  ofiensive 
conduct.  I  feel  scarcely  less  certain  that  no  just  provocation 
has  been  received  from  the  American  Mission.  I  have  said 
that  in  the  beginning  such  action  on  the  part  of  officers  and 
populace  alike  did  not  exist ;  and  in  saying  so,  I  do  not  ovei'- 
look  the  fact  that  in  all  large  cities  there  will  be  idle  and  ill- 
conditioned  people  about  the  thoroughfares,  disorderly  boys 
who  will  follow  and  sometimes  hoot  at  foreigners,  or  idly  throw 
a  stone.  These  things  may  happen  every  where,  and  in  most 
civilized  states;  nor  to  such  instances  as  these  have  I  ever 
thought  it  necessary  to  draw  your  attention ;  but  there  is  this 
notable  difference  between  these  continued  and  reiterated  acts 
of  aggression  directed  against  the  five  or  six  individuals  form- 
ing two  diplomatic  Missions  (who  must  be  very  generally 
known  to  be  the  only  foreign  residents  at  Yeddo)  and  what 
might  take  place  in  any  city  of  Europe,  viz.,  that  such  public 
display  of  violence  could  not  take  place  without  its  being  the 
duty  of  certain  public  officers  charged  with  the  maintenance 
of  the  peace  to  interfere  and  put  a  stop  to  it,  and  apprehend 
some,  at  least,  of  the  most  prominent  offenders,  who  would,  in 
that  case,  be  certainly  and  severely  punished  for  their  violation 
of  the  law.  Secondly,  that  if  any  officer,  or  civilian  even,  of 
respectability,  saw  such  disgraceful  conduct  toward  inoffensive 
strangers,  they  would,  of  their  own  accord,  interfere  to  prevent 
its  continuance,  and  secure,  if  possible,  the  apprehension  of  some 
of  the  assailants.  And  they  would  be  held  disgraced  in  pub- 
lic opinion  if  they  failed  to  do  so,  much  more  if  they  stood  by 
encouraging  such  ruffianly  violence ;  while  any  officer  or  pub- 
lic functionary  so  acting  could  hardly  escape,  on  complaint,  if 
not  without  it,  the  punishment  due  to  his  conduct.  If  any  such 
instances  of  unprovoked  and  unpunished  violence  offered  to  in- 
offensive foreigners  ever  occur  in  European  States,  there  is  no 
one  who  does  not  know  that  they  are  the  exceptions,  not  the 
rule ;  and  the  occurrence  of  one  is  quite  sufficient  to  move  the 
government  or  municipal  authorities  to  more  strenuous  efforts 
to  provide  against  the  possibility  of  a  recurrence  of  the  same 
acts  with  like  impunity. 

'  In  all  these  essential  points  I  am  obliged  to  conclude  the 
inhabitants  and  officers  of  Yeddo  differ  from  the  functionaries 
and  populations  of  every  other  city  in  the  civilized  world.  I 
say  it  with  regret,  but  the  facts  compel  me  to  adopt  this  con- 
clusion. Day  after  day  these  insults  and  outrages  are  offer- 
ed to  five  or  six  individuals ;  they  increase  in  frequency  and 
violence:  no  functionary  interferes.     Officers  are  sometimes 

K 


218  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap  XL 

the  assailants,  and  oftener  still  either  passive  or  encouraging 
spectators. 

'  With  all  this  going  on  almost  under  the  walls  of  the  Ty- 
coon's palace,  and  the  Representatives  of  two  of  the  Great 
Powers  of  the  West  subjected  to  daily  insult  in  the  persons  of 
those  attached  to  them,  and  liable  to  the  same  treatment  in 
their  own  persons,  neither  the  Japanese  Government  nor  the 
functionaries  charged  with  the  maintenance  of  the  laws  and 
good  order  in  the  city  give  sign  of  life.  No  steps  are  taken, 
to  all  appearance,  to  prevent  the  continual  recurrence  of  these 
scenes  of  disgraceful  violence  by  the  direct  and  timely  inter- 
vention of  tlie  proper  authorities  on  the  spot.  No  public  proc- 
lamation is  issued  to  warn  the  inhabitants  of  the  penalties  of 
such  conduct,  and  prohibit  it  in  the  name  of  the  law  and  the 
Government.  No  authoritative  act  appears  insisting  upon  the 
respect  and  consideration  due  to  foreigners  coming  as  guests 
in  the  midst  of  this  population — to  the  Representatives  of  For- 
eign Powers,  entitled,  by  treaty  and  universal  custom,  not  only 
to  perfect  immunity  from  every  description  of  wrong,  but  to 
respect  and  consideration. 

'  J  will  not  tell  your  Excellencies  what  are  the  natural  and 
legitimate  inferences  to  be  drawn  from  all  the  facts  I  have  been 
reluctantly  compelled  on  this  occasion  to  bring  under  your  se- 
rious notice ;  but  I  am  bound  to  state,  that  if  the  Japanese 
Government  desired  to  make  the  treaties  so  formally  entered 
into  a  short  year  ago  with  Foreign  Powers  null  and  void  of 
effect  without  actually  declaring  such  to  be  their  intention ;  to 
make  trade  impossible  by  vexatious  impediments,  delays,  and 
changes  of  currency ;  and,  finally,  to  render  the  residence  of 
Diplomatic  agents  in  Yeddo  either  untenable  or  dangerous  to 
life,  with  all  the  risks  of  misunderstandings,  demands  for  re- 
dress backed  by  power,  and  risks  of  collision — deplorable  in  all 
circumstances — and  grave  complications  of  national  interests 
with  it,  it  would  be  difficult,  I  conceive,  to  devise  any  system 
better  calculated  to  effect  this  end,  whether  I  regard  that 
which  has  been  done  and  openly  permitted,  or  that  which  has 
neither  been  done  nor  attempted  to  avert  the  worst  conse- 
quences. 

'I  deeply  regret  to  have  to  make  such  serious  representa- 
tions to  your  Excellencies,  on  matters,  too,  involving  our  na- 
tional relations  with  Japan.  I  have  it  very  earnestly  at  heart 
to  avert  consequences  I  too  clearly  foresee  will  follow,  if 
prompt  and  efficacious  means  be  not  taken  to  that  end.  It  is 
the  desire  of  my  government  and  the  interest  of  Great  Britain 
to  be  at  peace  with  all  nations,  and  cultivate  only  the  best  le- 


CHAr.Xr.]       PROTEST.— MURDER  OF  RUSSIANS.  21d 

fations ;  but  it  is  not  permitted  to  any  nation  with  large  in- 
terests at  stake  and  national  honor  to  defend,  to  shrink  from 
the  due  maintenance  of  its  treaty  rights,  and  least  of  all  can 
Great  Britain  allow  them  to  be  trampled  under  foot  here  or 
elsewhere.  I  am,  therefore,  acting  strictly  and  simply  in  ac- 
cordance with  my  instructions  in  taking  the  only  step  which 
appears  calculated  to  prevent  any  interrujjiion  to  the  good 
understanding  and  friendly  intercourse  it  was  the  object  of 
the  treaty  to  establish  and  maintain  inviolate,  by  calling  the 
attention  of  the  Government  of  Japan,  through  your  Excellen- 
cies, to  the  imperative  necessity  for  the  vigorous  adoption  of 
measures  which  shall  render  such  frequent  and  grave  causes 
of  complaint  impossible,  and  allow  the  treaty  to  take  effect, 
by  the  removal  of  obstacles  for  which  the  Japanese  Govern- 
ment must  unavoidably  be  responsible.' 

This  undoubtedly  had  its  effect ;  for,  although  the  ministers 
disclaimed  any  knowledge  of  the  parties  offending,  and  denied 
their  power  to  prevent  such  popular  demonstrations,  I  rode 
through  this  quarter  a  week  later,  and  several  miles  on  the 
other  side,  and  not  a  hand  or  voice  was  raised  against  me,  nor 
have  such  scenes  ever  been  renewed  since.  If  the  Govern- 
ment had  nothing  to  do  with  this  sudden  cessation  of  such 
hostile  acts,  it  was  certainly  a  very  strange  coincidence  that, 
so  immediately  after  an  energetic  remonstrance,  they  ceased 
altogether  and  permanently. 

Count  Mouravieff  took  up  his  residence  at  a  large  temple, 
having  landed  with  a  guard  of  300  men  fully  armed  and  equip- 
ped. Shortly  afterward  I  heard  that  some  of  his  officers,  in 
walking  through  the  city,  had  been  annoyed  and  insulted,  and 
one  morning  he  came  to  breakfast  with  me,  arriving  late,  and 
looking  as  if  something  untoward  had  occurred.  In  a  few 
moments  he  told  me  he  had  just  received  some  deplorable  in- 
telligence from  Kanagawa.  An  officer,  with  a  sailor  and  a 
steward  of  one  of  the  Russian  ships,  had  been  on  shore  about 
8  o'clock  the  previous  evening  to  buy  some  provisions,  and  on 
their  way  to  the  boat,  close  to  the  principal  street,  in  which 
many  of  the  shops  were  still  open,  the  party  was  suddenly  set 
upon  by  some  armed  Japanese,  and  hewn  down  with  the  most 
ghastly  wounds  that  could  be  inflicted.  The  steward,  though 
mortally  wounded  it  was  feared,  still  lived,  having,  after  the 
first  onset,  succeeded  in  rushing  into  a  shop.  The  other  two 
were  left  in  a  pool  of  blood,  the  flesh  hanging  in  large  masses 
from  their  bodies  and  limbs.  The  sailor  was  cleft  through  his 
skull  to  the  nostrils,  half  the  scalp  sliced  down,  and  one  arm 
pearly  severed  from  the  shoulder  through  the  joint.    The  offi' 


220  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XL 

cer  was  equally  mangled,  his  lungs  protruding  from  a  sabre 
gash  across  the  body,  the  thighs  and  legs  deeply  gashed.  The 
ruffians,  it  appears,  were  not  content  with  simply  killing,  but 
must  have  taken  pleasure  in  cutting  them  to  pieces.  All  three, 
unfortunately,  were  unarmed,  but  numbers  of  people  were  ei- 
ther in  sight  or  in  the  close  vicinity.  Was  it,  then,  a  mere 
highway  robbery,  with  murder  as  an  accompaniment,  or  was 
it  an  act  of  hatred  and  revenge  ?  It  is  said  that  one  or  more 
officials  had  been  dismissed,  on  the  complaint  of  General  Mou- 
ravieflf,  for  insults  offered  to  some  of  his  own  officers  a  day  or 
two  before.  This  seemed  to  offer  a  possible  clew  to  the  assas- 
sins, but  nothing  had  been  heard  of  them. 

This  first  deed  of  blood  took  every  one  by  surprise ;  for  al- 
though, as  I  have  recorded,  there  were  not  wanting  evidences 
of  hostility  somewhere,  believed  more  especially  to  have  its 
origin  in  Yeddo  among  the  Daimios  and  their  armed  retainers, 
it  had  hitherto  only  manifested  itself  by  acts  of  rudeness  and. 
insult,  or  the  turbulence  of  a  mob.  Here,  without  the  slight- 
est provocation  and  away  from  the  capital,  three  unfortunate 
men  had  been  set  upon  and  butchered  in  the  most  savage 
manner.  What  was  the  motive,  and  who  were  the  perpetra- 
tors ?  It  was  difficult  to  imagine  they  could  be  common  high- 
waymen and  robbers — ''Lonins^  as  brigands  are  called  in  this 
country,  including  all  the  criminal  classes  who  have  no  fixed 
abode,  employment,  or  lord,  disbanded  soldiers,  disgraced  and 
unclassed  retainers  of  the  Daimios,  deserters,  etc.  It  is  difficult 
to  attribute  the  act  to  any  of  these  for  purposes  of  plunder, 
because,  although  they  did  carry  off  a  money-box  the  steward 
had  with  him,  it  was  found  on  the  road  to  Kanagawa.  True, 
it  contained  only  foreign  coins,  which  they  may  have  thought 
too  dangerous  property  and  nearly  useless  to  them  after  such 
a  deed.  It  is  believed  that  the  parties  had  come  down  to 
Kanagawa  from  Yeddo.  This  is  certain,  by  the  depositions  of 
the  steward  and  of  the  officer,  who  did  not  expire  until  some 
of  his  companions  had  reached  the  spot,  that  one  or  more  of 
the  attacking  party  wore  the  two  swords  distinctive  of  an  offi- 
cer's rank  in  Japan.  A  sandal  was  left  on  the  ground,  which, 
by  its  make,  proved  the  rank  of  the  wearer  to  be  above  that 
of  a  coolie.  A  vest,  too,  had  been  torn  off,  but  with  no  dis- 
tinguishing badge  or  mark ;  and  a  piece  of  a  broken  sword  was 
found  by  the  bodies — all  useful  means  of  tracing  the  assassins. 
But  the  Governor,  when  the  British  Acting  Consul  went  to 
him  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  on  being  informed  of  what 
had  happened,  treated  the  whole  matter  with  a  kind  of  brutal 
levity  (such,  at  least,  was  the  impression  he  gave),  and  there 


Chap.  XI.]  DIFFICULT  QUESTIONS.  221 

was  little  hope  of  justice  from  such  authority.  They  were  uot 
mere  highwaymen,  however,  because  the  manner  in  which  the 
murdered  men  were  slashed  and  nearly  dismembered  indica- 
ted more  than  a  mere  desire  to  disable  or  kill.  There  was 
something  savage  and  vindictive,  indicating  personal  or  polit- 
ical feeling  in  the  number  and  nature  of  the  wounds.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  it  had  some  ulterior  or  political  design  of  intimi- 
dation addressed  to  all  the  Foreigners,  surely  none  in  high 
places  would  have  chosen  this  particular  moment,  when,  by  a 
rare  chance,  there  was  a  powerful  foreign  squadron  in  the  bay 
of  the  nation  to  which  the  victims  belonged,  and  a  chief  in 
Count  Mouravieflf  who  could  land  an  army  on  their  territory 
from  the  neighboring  coast,  if  he  pleased,  in  a  shorter  period 
than  could  any  other  foreign  representative  or  government. 
But  it  was  precisely  on  account  of  this,  according  to  popular 
rumor,  that  the  deed  was  done,  and  his  men  were  singled  out. 
In  the  troubles  consequent  on  the  last  American  treaty.  Prince 
Mito,  as  I  have  already  explained,  was  exiled  by  the  Kegent, 
Ikamono-no-kami^  whose  own  tragic  end  was  not  yet  fore- 
shadowed. Since  that  period  the  prince  had  been  left  under 
a  species  of  surveillance,  chafing  under  the  loss  of  power  and 
the  failure  of  his  projects.  Having  yet  a  large  body  of  officers 
and  retainers  devoted  to  him  as  their  feudal  chief,  it  was  sup- 
posed he  had  now  taken  this  means  of  bringing  the  existing 
government  and  its  real  chief,  the  Regent,  into  collision  with  a 
foreign  Power,  hoping  in  the  confusion  to  recover  his  position, 
and  perhaps  seize  upon  the  reins  of  power  as  Tycoon. 

Another  account,  already  referred  to,  represented  it  as  an 
act  of  personal  revenge  directed  indiscriminately  against  any 
Russians  that  might  come  in  their  way,  in  order  to  avenge  the 
disgrace  of  an  official,  which  Count  Mouravieff  had  insisted 
upon  as  a  satisfaction  for  some  violence  or  insult  ofl'ered  to  a 
party  of  his  officers  in  Yeddo. 

Of  the  real  motives,  or  the  actual  perpetrators,  nothing  pos- 
itive has  ever  been  known.  But  no  one  believed  that  it  was 
a  mei'e  case  of  highway  robbery  and  murder.  Count  Moura- 
vieff was  pleased  to  confer  with  me  as  to  the  best  steps  to  be 
taken,  .ind  the  means  of  obtaining  the  punishment  of  all  con- 
cerned in  this  atrocity,  or,  failing  this,  the  means  of  exacting 
such  satisfaction  or  reparation  for  the  outrage  as  could  be  ac- 
cepted, and  might  best  deter  the  Government  or  the  Daimios 
from  recurring  to  such  means  of  carrying  out  a  policy  of  hos- 
tility and  exclusion,  if  such,  indeed,  was  the  construction  to  bo 
put  upon  this  otherwise  motiveless  crime. 

This  involved  many  considerations  both  of  expediency  and 


222  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XL 

practicability.  The  news  liad  only  just  been  received  of  the 
repulse  of  both  English  and  French  forces  at  the  Peiho,  recoil- 
ing defeated  from  the  Taku  forts.  It  was  not  to  be  conceived 
that  this  would  be  without  significance  or  influence  on  the 
minds  of  the  Japanese  rulers.  True,  I  had  myself  announced 
the  fact  to  the  Government  (preferring  this  to  leaving  it  to 
less  sure  hands  to  bear  intelligence  which  could  not  be  kept 
secret),  and  had  declared  at  the  same  time  the  certainty  that, 
as  soon  as  forces  could  be  dispatched  from  England  or  India, 
signal  retribution  would  be  exacted.  Yet  the  check  had  actu- 
ally taken  place,  and  the  retribution  was  future  and  contin- 
gent, and  might  well  seem  to  them  less  certain  than  I  repre- 
sented it. 

A  few  days  later,  a  drunken  officer  was  brandishing  one  of 
the  sabres  they  carry  (a  murderous  weapon  in  any  hands,  with 
a  powerful  leverage  of  handle,  and  an  edge  like  a  razor),  vow- 
ing he  would  have  the  head  of  a  Russian.  And  what  was 
done  ?  He  was  evidently  dangerous,  and,  after  some  delay,  he 
was  dragged  down  at  a  respectful  distance  by  a  long  pole  with 
a  hook,  and  disarmed,  but  only  to  be  sent  about  his  business. 
It  was  impossible  to  disguise  the  fact  that  a  hostile  spirit  of 
the  worst  kind  was  abroad,  and  to  all  remonstrances  the  For- 
eign Ministers  quietly  observed  that  these  acts  of  violence 
fully  justified  them  in  all  they  had  urged  upon  the  Plenipoten- 
tiaries negotiating,  as  to  the  dangerous  character  of  the  popu- 
lation in  Yeddo,  and  the  expediency  of  deferring  the  residence 
of  any  diplomatic  agents  for  two  or  three  years !  It  was,  of 
course,  easy,  and  it  might  be  pleasant  for  them  to  fulfill  their 
own  predictions  of  mischief,  but  would  the  contracting  Powers 
allow  their  agents  to  be  driven  out  of  Yeddo  by  mob  violence, 
their  subjects  to  be  murdered  in  the  streets,  and  all  ti'ade  made 
impossible  ?  In  the  mean  time,  this  is  what  they  menaced  us 
with  thus  early,  and  the  position  of  all  the  diplomatic  agents 
at  Yeddo  was  any  thing  but  secure,  if  not  full  of  peril,  and 
boded  ill  for  the  possibility  of  any  satisfactory  relations  being 
established.  There  was  too  much  reason  to  believe  that  a 
powerful  party  among  the  hereditary  Princes  and  Daimios 
were  disposed  to  risk  every  thing  rather  than  permit  peace- 
able intercourse  and  good  relations  with  European  Powers  to 
be  established ;  and  the  late  checks  suffered  by  the  allies  at  the 
Peiho,  and  the  Fi-ench  in  Cochin  China,  with  the  war  raging 
in  Europe  at  the  time,  may  all  have  tended  to  embolden  them 
to  make  the  effort  without  farther  delay  to  drive  the  Missions 
from  the  capital,  and  all  trade  from  its  vicinity. 

In  the  end,  it  was  seen  nothing  could  be  done.    To  blockade 


Chap.  XI.] 


THE  AMENDE. 


223 


the  port  and  bombard  the  city,  assuming  it  were  in  the  Count's 
power  to  do  either,  gave  little  promise  of  better  result.  The 
first  would  have  the  immediate  effect  of  making  both  the  cap- 
ital and  port  of  Kanagawa  untenable  to  Foreigners,  and  the 
last  was  an  extreme  measure,  likely  to  cost  the  lives  of  thou- 
sands of  innocent  and  harmless  people,  without  doing  the  least 
injury  to  those  really  concerned  in  the  wrong.  In  this  Count 
Mouravieff*  seemed  entirely  to  agree,  and  he  finally  took  his 
departure  a  few  days  afterward,  having  insisted  upon  certain 
'  high  officers'  going  on  board  and  making  in  person  an  apolo- 
gy on  the  part  of  the  Government,  which  entered  into  an  en- 
gagement to  discover  and  punish  the  offenders  by  a  given  pe- 
riod. It  was  farther  stipulated  and  agreed  that  the  Governor 
of  Kanagawa  should  be  disgraced,  and  that  they  should  build 
a  mortuary  chapel,  and  keep  a  guard  in  perpetuity  on  the  spot. 
It  was  very  characteristic  that  this  last  condition  was  precise- 
ly the  one  they  most  resisted,  as  entailing  on  all  posterity  a 
great  and  needless  expense. 


And  80  ended  the  first  of  a  long  series  of  tragedies,  with 
something  very  like  a  solemn  farce ;  the  apology  and  the  prom- 
ise were  made,  the  chapel  has  been  built,  but  of  course  nothing 
has  ever  been  heard  of  the  perpetrators,  and  the  very  Govern- 
or so  disgraced  was  actuallv  named,  two  years  later,  to  pro- 
ceed as  one  of  the  Tycoon's  Envoys  on  a  mission  to  the  Treaty 
Powers  in  Europe,  the  Court  of  Russia  among  the  rest ;  and 


224  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XH. 

it  was  only  on  my  remonstrance  that  he  was  removed  from  the 
mission  and  another  appointed  in  his  place.  The  struggle  had 
now  commenced  in  earnest,  and  first  blood  had  been  shed — the 
struggle  between  European  diplomacy,  with  protocols  and  the 
appliances  of  modern  warfare  in  the  background,  and  Japanese 
policy,  animated  by  a  fierce  spirit  of  national  fanaticism  and 
hostility  to  all  innovation,  backed  by  the  assassin's  steel  and 
all  the  weapons  of  Oriental  treachery  and  ruthless  cruelty. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

Improving  Prospects. — An  Official  Interview  with  the  two  Ministers  of  For- 
eign Affairs. — Ride  Home  by  Moonlight. — How  Yeddo  appears  after  Sun- 
set. 

July  and  August  were  gone,  the  first  two  months  after  ray 
arrival ;  and  however  monotonously  the  time  seemed  to  pass, 
day  after  day  glided  imperceptibly  away.  It  is  in  these  cir- 
cumstances that  time  in  the  retrospect  always  seems  the  short- 
est. With  nothing  to  mark  or  distinguish  one  day  from  an- 
other (one  day  and  night  being  the  exact  counterpart  of  the 
other),  the  mind  refuses  to  take  account  of  the  unvarying  suc- 
cession, and  the  memory  finds  nothing  prominent  whereon  to 
attach  a  record.  The  days  themselves  may  seem  long,  with 
nothing  to  break  the  dull  flow  of  the  unrippled  stream  while 
we  are  living  through  each  one,  but  on  looking  back  we  find  it 
impossible  to  say  whether  ten  or  twenty  have  passed  along  the 
same  smooth  way,  leaving  no  footprint  or  water-mark  on  the 
shores.  In  traveling,  where  each  hour  brings  new  scenes,  new 
people  and  things,  while  events  are  crowded  into  small  space, 
or  in  the  excitement  of  active  life,  where  every  day  is  filled 
with  the  record  of  hopes  or  fears,  successes  or  failures,  work 
achieved,  designs  advanced  or  retarded  by  adverse  conditions, 
the  mind  is  incessantly  on  the  stretch  between  the  conception 
and  the  birth  of  new  projects,  and  refuses  to  accept  a  mere 
calendar  measure  of  time.  We  have  lived  ten  days  or  months 
in  one,  counting,  as  the  mind  ever  does,  by  epochs  made  out 
of  sensations  and  events ;  and  however  rapid  the  passage  of 
each  day,  when  filled  to  the  brim  with  thoughts  and  deeds,  in 
the  retrospect  a  month  expands  into  space  and  time  without 
definite  limit! 

Our  only  incident  at  this  period  was  the  appearance  of  the 
cholera.    I  returned  from  the  American  Legation  on  the  even- 


Chap.XU]     the  cholera  IN  YEDDO.— A  VISIT.  225 

ing  of  the  29th  of  August,  bringing  the  unpleasant  tidings, 
and  the  next  morning  I  awoke  to  find  myself  in  its  fell  gnp. 
The  attack  was  sharp  but  short,  and  my  actual  danger  was 
over  in  a  few  hours,  but  I  did  not  feel  quite  well  for  some  time 
after,  and  all  the  other  members  of  the  establishment  had  at- 
tacks more  or  less  severe  in  character.  Fortunately,  no  life 
was  lost,  and  in  the  mean  time  the  hot  season  was  passing  rap- 
idly away,  and  in  another  fortnight  or  three  weeks  we  might 
expect  cool  days  as  well  as  nights.  The  heat,  however,  out 
of  the  sun,  was  never  excessive ;  the  highest  range  of  the  ther- 
mometer in  the  house  was  only  86°,  and  its  ordinary  pitch  in 
midday  was  80°,  while  the  evenings  always  became  cool  and 
pleasant ;  there  had  been  not  more  than  two  or  three  nights 
when  the  temperature  could  interfere  with  sleep,  lying  under 
musquito  curtains  without  bed-covering. 

The  political  atmosphere  seemed  clearing.  The  day  I  was 
laid  up  with  the  cholera,  one  of  the  Governors  of  Foreign  Af- 
fairs paid  a  visit,  appaiently  a  call  of  friendly  courtesy  or  ca- 
jolery, for  he  proposed  that,  at  any  time  I  liked,  he  would  ac- 
company me  to  see  some  of  the  more  curious  temples,  make 
water  parties,  etc.  Tliis  was  quite  a  novel  proposition,  for 
hitherto  they  had  only  seemed  anxious  to  keep  Foreigners  out 
of  the  streets,  and  within  the  four  walls  of  their  official  resi- 
dences. He  proposed  that  jugglers  should  be  sent  for  to 
amuse  me,  and  the  next  day  sent  again  to  ask  after  my  health ! 
The  same  comedy  was  acted  with  the  American  Minister. 
However,  it  was  all  received  courteously,  of  course  for  as  much 
as  it  was  wortli  only,  but  I  looked  upon  it  as  significant  of 
some  anxiety  on  their  part  as  to  the  state  of  their  relations. 
Count  MouraviefF  had,  no  doubt,  made  very  energetic  remon- 
strances against  the  manifest  laxity  of  Government  and  offi- 
cials which  allowed  Foreigners  to  be  repeatedly  stoned  and 
mobbed  without  interference,  and  some  of  his  own  people  final- 
ly murdered  within  a  few  steps  of  open  shops,  and  in  sight  of 
the  Otono,  or  head  man  of  the  ward,  who  declared  that,  hear- 
ing blows  in  the  street  opposite,  and  seeing  through  the  dark- 
ness two  Russians  fall,  '  he  called  his  assistants  to  light  the 
lanterns,  and  when  all  were  ready  sallied  out,'  to  find  two  For- 
eigners weltering  in  their  blood,  nearly  hacked  to  pieces,  and 
one  already  dead — the  murderers  clear  off,  of  course.  Upon 
which  he  sent  to  his  superior  officers,  and  waited  orders,  not 
even  lifting  the  dying  officer  from  the  road  !  The  removal  of 
the  Governor  and  the  Otono,  it  is  true,  was  the  only  redress 
obtainable;  but  the  Government  spared  no  effort  to  remove 
from  the  Count's  mind  any  impression  he  may  have  had,  either 


226  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XU. 

of  their  complicity,  or  their  unwillingness  to  give  the  fullest 
redress,  by  the  seizure  and  execution  of  the  oiFenders,  if  they 
could  be  found.  Unless  they  were  the  protected  retainers  of 
a  Daimio  indeed,  this  would  cost  them  little ;  life  is  not  set  at 
a  high  value  either  by  Japanese  laws  or  customs.  About  this 
time,  Mr.  Cowan,  one  of  the  Consulate  interpreters,  was  on  his 
way  up  from  Kanagawa,  and,  just  before  reaching  the  gates  of 
the  Legation,  he  saw  an  evidence  of  this  which  seemed  to  have 
turned  him  sick.  Three  gory  heads  were  stuck  in  a  bed  of 
clay  on  a  pedestal  by  the  road  side,  with  the  eyes  open  in  the 
fixed  stare  of  death.  I  could  not  find  out  to  whom  they  had 
belonged,  or  for  what  crime  their  owners  had  been  condemned. 
But  a  theft  of  any  sum  above  forty  kobangs  is  death,  and  even 
repeated  petty  larcenies  have  the  same  penalty  attached.  Here 
is  an  original  sentence  forwarded  to  the  Consul  in  an  official 
letter : 

To  F.  Howard  Vyse,  Esq. 
KiHi ! 
Vagabond  in  the  village  Idrocmigawa. 
Yon  have,  while  in  the  service  of  the  English  merchant  Telge,  stolen  300 
rio  in  his  absence,  which  were  kept  in  an  unlocked  box. 

As  this  is  a  great  offense,  you  are  sentenced  to  be  beheaded. 

KiSKE  ! 

In  the  village  of  loci  u  Mocra. 

During  the  time  you  were  in  the  service  of  Telge,  an  English  merchant, 
residing  in  Yoku-hama,  your  fellow-merchant  Kilii  stole  his  money ;  although 
you  were  ignorant  of  this,  it  is  declared  unlawful  that  you  fled  with  him  when 
asked  to  do  so,  and  suspicious  that  you  allowed  him  to  pay  your  expenses  for 
lodging,  food,  and  drink,  while  traveling  with  him  for  many  days. 

You  shall  be  whipped  and  banished. 

The  above  two  sentences  having  been  passed,  the  remainder  of  the  stolen 
money,  284  rio,  17  tempos,  and  80  cash,  is  kept  at  your  disposal.  I  desire 
yon  may  communicate  the  above  sentences  to  Telge,  and  hand  him  the  mon- 
ey, for  which  I  beg  him  to  give  a  receipt. 

Proposed  with  respect. 

The  11th  day  of  the  4th  month.     (June  1,  1860.) 

(Signed)  Takimoto  Dzoehionokami. 

Other  signs  of  improvement  were  not  wanting.  "When  we 
went  abroad,  the  ward  constables  with  their  jingling  staves  in- 
stantly turned  out,  and  so  escorted  us  from  street  to  street,  re- 
lieved at  each  gate.  Mr.  Heusken,  the  interpreter  of  the  Uni- 
ted States'  Legation,  went  on  horseback  to  his  old  haunt,  the 
populous  quarter  about  the  Nipon  Bas  or  central  bridge,  where 
he  had  been  so  often  assailed  and  mobbed,  and  found  himself 
well  guarded,  and  not  an  idle  boy  seemed  to  have  a  look,  much 
less  a  stone  to  throw  at  him. 


Chap.  XII.] 


A  NIGHT  SCENE. 


227 


One  day  in  September,  a  two  hours'  procession  through  the 
commercial  aiul  offioinl  cities  in  Norinions  brought  me  to  the 
residence  of  tlie  jMinister  ofForeiii^i  Aftairs,  and  another  two 
hours,  spent  in  discussing  a  great  variety  of  pending  matters, 
were  required  to  set  me  free  to  mount  my  liorse,  and  return  by 
moonlight,  and  lantern-light  combined,  with  a  noisj'  accompa- 
niment of  jingling  staves,  to  an  eight  o'clock  dinner. 


NKiiiT  .s(  i;ni;. — (From  a  Japantat  toood-cut.) 

I  should  like  to  attempt  a  description  of  the  whole  from  be- 
ginning to  end — procession,  interview,  and  return  by  night  to 
the  temple  of  Tozengee,  where  the  British  Legation  was  pro- 
visionally located — a  brief  chapter  in  Yeddo  life,  during  which 
glimpses  are  obtained  of  a  thousand  things  connected  with  the 
habits  and  character  of  the  Japanese  in  their  relations  with 
each  other,  in  their  political  system,  and  social  institutions; 
while  the  interview  itself  brings  out  in  strong  relief  the  conflict 
between  the  heterogeneous  elements  of  two  different  phases  of 
civilization,  each  marked  by  a  state  of  feeling  and  of  ethics 
equally  fixed,  and  sometimes  perfectly  irreconcilable.  Japan- 
ese imperialism  and  nationality,  feudalism,  and  the  whole  po- 
litical and  social  system,  V)y  which  the  people  are  not  only  gov- 
erned, but  influenced  in  their  development,  all  form  a  study 
iiill  of  interest  in  a  philosophical  as  well  as  an  international 
point  of  view. 


228  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAlPAN.  fCHAP.  Xll. 

The  Norimoiis  are  at  the  door — suspended  cages,  already 
described  as  something  like  a  large  baby-house,  with  roof  and 
side  doors,  and  cushions,  and  shelves,  and  windows.  The  stur- 
dy Norimon-bearers  wear  a  loose  tunic  of  cotton  descending 
nearly  to  their  heels,  but  when  engaged  in  carrying,  especially 
if  it  be  a  person  of  importance,  the  skirts  are  tucked  up  by  the 
waistband,  and  the  lower  limbs  and  body,  to  the  waist  nearly, 
left  bare  and  free,  in  token  of  the  urgent  business  on  which 
they  are  engaged,  like  the  Jews  of  old,  who  '  girded  up  their 
loins'  in  somewhat  similar  guise  very  possibly  when  preparing 
for  a  journey  or  for  energetic  action.  Thus  equipped,  the  arms 
of  their  master  stamped  or  embroidered  on  the  back  and  on 
each  arm,  they  bend  under  the  great  projecting  beam  and  raise 
it  on  their  shoulders,  the  bottom  of  the  Norimon  being  then 
about  a  foot  only  above  the  ground.  They  make  no  cry  or 
sound  such  as  the  Chinese  chair-bearers  or  Indian  palanquin- 
men,  but  step  out  with  a  tolerably  smooth,  steady  pace,  at  the 
rate  of  some  three  miles  an  hour.  Japanese  ideas  of  dignity 
are  opposed  to  all  haste,  and,  accordingly,  with  a  spear  carried 
in  front  to  which  the  British  flag  is  attached,  and  half  a  dozen 
Japanese  armed  with  swords  as  a  body-guard,  re-enforced  by 
a  squad  of  Japanese  officials  and  officers  sent  by  the  authori- 
ties to  accompany  me,  the  procession  winds  slowly  along.  My 
hoi'se  is  led  by  a  groom,  saddled  and  ready  to  mount  in  case 
of  accident  to  the  Norimon,  such  being  the  order  and  theory 
of  traveling  in  Japan.  A  great  Daimio  will  sometimes  be  fol- 
lowed by  two  or  three  led  horses,  but  only  a  very  poor  noble 
is  ever  supposed  to  ride — his  poverty,  not  his  will,  consenting. 
Had  I  been  a  Japanese,  I  should,  in  addition,  have  had  half  a 
dozen  bearers  carrying  trunks,  with  changes  of  dress  and  other 
objects  for  my  personal  convenience,  and  as  many  officers  and 
armed  retainers  in  addition  as  might  serve  to  mark  a  high  offi- 
cer's dignity,  from  fifty  to  five  hundred  or  more.  As  the  cav- 
alcade enters  into  the  street,  a  couple  of  ward  constables,  with 
ponderous  iron  rods  and  jingling  rings,  making  a  loud  carillon 
each  time  they  strike  the  ground  with  it,  head  the  march,  and 
announce  the  arrival  of  some  one  of  rank,  as  an  intimation  to 
clear  the  road.  These  are  exchanged  at  very  short  distances, 
on  the  entrance  of  every  new  ward,  marked  by  a  gate  across 
the  street  or  road,  and  a  small  guard-house.  If  it  be  a  Daimio 
or  Japanese  of  official  rank,  all  the  inhabitants  are  prohibited 
from  standing  up  at  the  doors  or  windows  to  look  at  the  great 
man,  and  persons  passing  are  bound  to  stop  and  make  lowly 
obeisance,  or  go  down  on  their  knees.*     Amid  all  these  out- 

*  I  have  sometimes  thought  this  custom  may  have  originated  as  a  measnrf, 


Chap.  XII.]  PATRICIAN  AND  PLEBEIAN.  229 

ward  marks  of  profound  respect  and  a  servile  state,  every  high 
officer  of  the  Tycoon  and  every  Daimio  is  accustomed  to  move. 
So  wide,  indeed,  is  the  distance  between  the  hereditary  nobles 
and  the  mass  of  the  population,  and  impassable  the  space  divid- 
ing them,  that  the  very  existence  of  the  plebeian  seems  nnrec- 
ognized  by  the  patrician  in  his  lordly  progress.  And  for  that 
very  reason  there  may  be  more  real  liberty  among  the  mass  of 
the  people  than  we  imagine.  It  has  often  been  remarked  that 
in  the  feudal  ages  of  Europe,  and  under  the  most  grinding  des- 
potism of  crowned  heads,  both  in  ancient  and  modern  times, 
when  absolute  power  over  the  lives  and  property  of  all  has 
been  claimed  as  of  Divine  right,  that  the  long  submission  of 
whole  populations  was  to  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  it  was 
only  rarely  the  violence  of  king  or  noble  reached  the  peasant. 
Feudal  princes  and  chiefs  made  war  on  and  despoiled  each 
other,  and  kings  preyed  upon  nobles,  but  it  was  only  excep- 
tionally that  the  weight  of  their  ruthless  hands  was  felt  by  the 
humbler  classes.  And  not  seldom  the  head  despot  of  all  made 
common  cause  with  the  people  against  the  insolent  power  of 
the  nobles,  and  appeared  rather  in  the  light  of  the  protector 
than  the  oppressor  of  either  burgher  or  peasant.  As  the  storm 
often  strikes  the  highest  trees  and  leaves  the  lowlier  shrubs 
unscathed,  so  has  it  often  been  with  the  humbler  classes ;  their 
lowness  is  their  pi-otection ;  and  being  beneath  the  notice  and 
attention  of  the  great  ones  of  the  earth,  save  as  instruments  of 
labor,  the  most  pregnant  causes  of  revolution  among  the  masses 
are  Avanting.  So  it  may  well  be  here  in  Japan,  where  we  find 
reproduced,  in  its  fullest  vigor,  the  feudal  and  despotic  condi- 
tions of  a  long-past  age  and  order  of  society  in  Europe.  The 
outward  show  of  servility  may  be  but  skin  deep,  and  the  body 
of  the  industrial  population,  in  town  and  country,  may  be  left 
with  a  larger  share  of  freedom  and  greater  immunity  from  in- 
dividual wrong,  or  meddling  legislation  brought  to  bear  upon 
them  by  those  who  wield  the  chief  power  of  the  state,  than  in 
many  countries  having  the  form  and  show  of  popular  freedom 
and  more  democratic  institutions.  Many  things  which  meet 
the  eye  and  the  ear  tend  to  give  this  impression,  but  of  course 
require  verification  before  any  deduction  of  this  nature  can  be 
accepted  as  conclusively  established. 

We  pass  on  along  the  great  tocado ;  the  people  in  the  streets 
and  shops,  attracted  by  the  jingling  of  the  iron  stave-men  and 
a  line  of  march,  squat  down  on  their  heels,  as  is  their  manner, 

of  secnrity  against  those  vory  onslaughts  of  which  we  have  had  so  many  in- 
stances the  last  three  years,  where  armed  men  have  sprung  upon  high  per- 
Bonages  in  the  midst  of  their  retinue. 


230 


THKEE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  XII. 


to  get  a  peep  into  the  Norimon.  Men  and  women  steaming  in 
the  bathing-houses  raise  themselves  to  the  open  bars  of  the  lat-^ 
tice  fronts  to  look  out,  the  interior  behind  them  presenting  a 
view  very  faithfully  represented  in  the  following  sketch  by  a 
native  artist ;  in  reference  to  which,  I  can  not  help  feeling 


JAPANESE   LADIES   IN  THE    BATH. 


there  is  some  danger  of  doing  great  injustice  to  the  woman- 
hood of  Japan,  if  we  judge  them  by  mir  rules  of  decency  and 
modesty.  Where  there  is  no  sense  of  immodesty,  no  conscious- 
ness of  wrong  doing,  there  is,  or  may  be,  a  like  absence  of  any 
sinful  or  depraved  feeling.  It  is  a  custom  of  the  country.  Fa? 
thers,  brothers,  and  husbands  all  sanction  it ;  and  from  child* 
hood  the  feeling  must  grow  up,  as  effectually  guarding  them 
from  self-reproach  or  shame  as  their  sisters  in  Europe  in  adopt- 
ing low  dresses  in  the  ball-room,  or  any  other  generally  adopted 
fashion  of  garments  or  amusements.  There  is  much  in  the 
usual  appearance  and  expression  of  Japanese  women  to  lead  to 
this  conclusion.    Any  one  of  the  real  performers  in  the  above 


CBXr.XIlj 


JAPANESE  STREET. 


^1 


scene — a  bathing  saturnalia  it  may  appear  to  us — when  all  is 
over  and  the  toilette  is  completed,  will  leave  the  bath  door  a 
very  picture  of  womanly  reserve  and  modesty,  as  truly  limned 
below,  looking  as  irreproachable  as  the  best  of  her  sex ;  and 
far  more  so,  both  in  look  and 
carriage,  than  a  great  many 
of  those  who  frequent  the 
streets  and  public  places  of 
resort  in  London  or  Paris. 
Little  nude  children  run  a 
few  steps  forward  to  pro- 
long their  view,  and  boys 
and  girls  somewhat  older 
compromise  the  matter  of 
costume  by  a  bit  of  printed 
calico  hung  from  the  waist, 
as  a  loose  apron.  Then 
black-teethed  women,  with 
mouths  like  open  sepul- 
chres, so  dark  and  forbid- 
ding is  the  cavern  they  un- 
lock, generally  uncovered  to 
the  waist  if  in  summer  time, 
and  with  a  copper-colored 
'  marmot'  hanging  to  the 
breast,  press  forward  for  :\ 
sight  at  the  shop  doors,  and 
rush  down  the  wynds  mid 
passages  which  lead  to  the 
great  thoroughfare.  Tat- 
tooed workmen  and  shop- 
boys  add  to  the  throng ;  and  swaggering  among  the  groups 
are  many  of  the  two-sworded  gentry,  retainers  of  Daimios,  sub- 
ordinate officials,  and  military,  all  fully  impressed  with  their 
own  importance  and  superiority,  as  well  as  of  the  masters  they 
serve,  to  the  common  plebs,  making  them  the  least  safe  or  pleas- 
ant people  in  all  Yeddo  to  meet. 

But  we  are  in  Norimons,  surrounded  by  servants,  and  for 
the  moment  out  of  the  reach  of  the  whole  class  of  ruffian  retain- 
ers and  disorderly  soldiers,  unless  they  resolve  to  make  an  on- 
slaught. Mile  after  mile  of  streets  has  to  be  traversed,  shops, 
and  tea-houses,  and  bathing  establishments  meeting  the  eye  at 
every  step  along  the  route.  There  is  the  Swan  and  Edgar's 
of  Yeddo,  with  premises  nearly  as  vast,  and  at  least  a  hundred 
men  an4  women  waiting  to  attend  the  QustojuerS)  vxd  with 


AFTEB   THE    BATH. 


232 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  XII. 


deafening  cries  inviting  the  latter  to  step  in  and  buy.  The 
cleanly  matted  floor,  raised  some  eighteen  inches  above  the 
street,  serves  for  an  ample  counter,  on  which  are  spread  the 
silks,  and  gauzes,  and  cottons  before  the  purchasers.  As  in  the 
sketch,  "  Scene  in  a  Silk-shop,"  the  seller  and  the  buyer,  both 
squatted  on  their  hams  and  heels,  or  bending  forward  on  their 
knees,  examine  the  goods  at  leisure.  Time,  which  is  never  an 
object  of  value  in  the  East,  or  to  an  Eastern,  is  very  essential 
to  any  satisfactory  dealings.  The  Japanese,  like  the  Turks, 
rather  prefer  a  chaffering  customer,  who,  in  spending  his  mon- 
ey, will  also  help  them  to  dispose  of  the  other  commodity, 
which  is  apt  to  hang  heavy  on  their  hands,  and  be  quite  as  dif- 
ficult to  get  rid  of — vacant  hours.  I  have  not  gone  deeply 
into  Japanese  silks,  my  knowledge  of  such  wares  being  very 
slight,  but  I  fancy  their  manufacturing  skill  is  inferior,  in  some 
kinds  at  least,  to  that  of  Europe.  They  have  both  delicate  col- 
ors and  fabrics  in  gauze,  however,  which  the  Daimios  and  men 
of  rank  wear  in  summer,  with  projecting  wings  on  the  outer 
vest,  giving  something  of  the  appearance,  when  they  are  in 
gala  costume,  of  dragon-flies.     Generally  speaking,  the  shops 


A  JAPANKSE   AT   HIS   TOILET   FOB   A   VISIT  OF   CEREMONT. 


CHAP.Xn.]  JAPANESE  STREET.  233 

make  little  show ;  the  better  class  of  goods  are  not  commonly 
set  out  to  attract  the  eye,  nor  could  they  be  so  without  dam- 
age, when  the  whole  shop  is  open  to  the  street,  with  no  glass  to 
protect  them  from  dust  or  exposure  to  the  damp.  The  crock- 
ery-shops, toy-shops,  second-hand  old  iron  and  bronze  shops, 
fruit-shops,  are  exceptions,  but  little  in  these  at  all  tempting 
ever  meets  the  eye  of  a  foreigner.  The  lacker-ware,  ornaments, 
and  similar  articles,  are  always  packed  away,  and  generally  to 
be  unearthed  only  by  diving  into  the  back,  or  mounting  a  break- 
neck ladder  to  the  loft  over  the  shop.  They  are,  perhaps,  the 
neatest  carpenters  and  cabinet-makers,  and  the  best  coopers  in 
the  world.  Their  tubs,  and  baths,  and  baskets  are  all  perfect 
specimens  of  workmanship.  But  here  we  are  on  the  Nipon 
Bas,  the  great  central  briclge  of  Nipon,  flung  across  the  River 
Okawa,  which  traverses  Yeddo.  The  population  hereabouts  is 
very  dense,  and  has  distinguished  itself,  as  I  have  related,  by 
repeatedly  mobbing  any  luckless  traveler  who  may  have  stray- 
ed so  far.  But  there  are  no  stones  for  us  to-day,  nor  crowd- 
ing and  pressing.  We  are  among  those,  for  the  hour, '  whom 
the  king  delighteth  to  honor,'  and  his  officials  lead  the  way. 
A  more  lamblike  or  inoffensive  assemblage  of  sight-seers  could 
hardly  be  found  all  the  world  through ;  yet  but  a  few  weeks 
before,  as  we  have  seen,  a  member  of  the  American  Legation 
and  the  Dutch  Consul,  although  on  horseback,  were  driven 
back  with  the  volley  of  stones  that  fell  around  them,  denting 
their  pith  helmets,  and  covering  the  wearers  with  bruises  ! 

At  last  we  arrive  at  the  residence  of  the  senior  of  the  For- 
eign Ministers,  where  the  interview  is  to  take  place,  glad 
enough,  for  the  sun  at  three  o'clock  in  these  latitudes  is  at  its 
hottest,  and  the  whole  atmosphere  is  heated  like  the  air  of  an 
oven,  which  the  Norimon,  under  the  sun's  rays,  by  no  means 
badly  represents.  Here  we  are  set  down,  and  having  been 
disinterred,  we  pass  through  one  of  the  great  gateways  already 
described  into  a  spacious,  well-paved  court-yard,  scrupulously 
clean  and  well  kept.  Immediately  opposite  the  entrance  is 
the  covered  entrance  to  the  dwelling  of  the  Minister,  where, 
Tmder  an  ample  peristyle,  two  superior  attendants  are  in  wait- 
ing to  receive  the  guests.  In  the  hall  beyond  we  find  the  in- 
terpreter, IMoriyama,  and  two  superior  officers.  We  pass  along 
a  large  matted  passage  or  corridor,  with  the  usual  paper  win- 
dows on  one  side,  and  sliding  panels  on  the  other — generally 
removed  in  summer,  and  giving  entrance  to  a  suite  of  rooms. 
Several  Governors  of  Foreign  Affairs  are  here  in  waiting  to  re- 
ceive us — under-secretaries  of  state  in  their  functions,  and  cre- 
ated expressly  for  the  transaction  of  foreign  affairs  since  the 


234  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAlf.  [Chap.  XII. 

treaties.  Finally,  we  gain  an  anteroom,  which  leads  to  a  room 
of  still  larger  dimensions  opening  on  to  a  narrow  court,  and 
evidently  the  principal  apartment  of  the  residence,  all  neatly 
matted,  with  silk  borders  to  each  mat ;  these,  indeed,  consti- 
tuting its  usual  furniture.  There  is  a  slightly  raised  dais  at 
the  end,  and  midway  up  the  room  the  two  Ministers  stand  to 
receive  their  guests.  A  grave  and  silent  salutation  is  ex- 
changed, and  each  party  retires  to  opposite  sides,  where  lacker 
tables  and  chairs  have  been  placed.  The  Ministers  and  the 
foreign  visitors  take  their  seat  at  the  same  moment.  Moriya- 
ma,  the  interpreter,  barefooted,  but  otherwise  with  wings  of 
gauze  and  surcoat  like  the  rest,  sinks  on  to  his  knees,  with  his 
head  nearly  touching  the  ground,  in  the  vacant  space  between 
those  on  each  side  who  will  have  to  be  the  spokesmen.  Be- 
hind the  Ministers,  to  the  right,  several  attendants,  in  similar 
attitude,  rest  like  statues  on  their  knees  and  heels ;  a  stand  im- 
mediately behind  receives  the  Ministers'  two  swords,  and  be- 
hind them  both,  in  a  row  within  easy  speaking  distance,  are 
the  seven  Governors  of  Foreign  Affairs,  often  apparently  filling 
the  part  so  humorously  described  by  Swift  in  '  Gulliver's  Trav- 
els,' as  the  '  Flappers'  of  the  Ministers,  to  make  them  under- 
stand what  they  hear,  or,  at  all  events,  explain  its  meaning,  and 
sometimes  suggest  what  to  say  in  reply.  These  have  no  ta- 
bles before  them,  and  are  seated  on  benches  ranged  along  the 
wall  on  the  ministerial  side  of  the  house.  At  the  lower  end, 
facing  the  passage,  are  groups  of  attendants  resting  on  their 
heels,  and  silent  as  the  grave. 

We  have  time  to  look  around  us;  nothing  is  hurried  or  pre- 
cipitate here ;  scarcely  will  the  first  formalities  have  been  ex- 
changed ten  minutes  hence.  We  scan  every  lineament  of  those 
present  quite  at  our  ease  ;  only  they  have  taken  care  to  place 
us  opposite  the  light,  and  themselves  in  shade,  with  their  back 
to  it,  so  that  we  may  rest  assured  they  have  the  advantage  of 
us  in  any  critical  examination  of  expression  or  feature.  While 
thus  engaged,  see,  there  comes  gliding  up  the  room,  with 
noiseless  step  upon  the  matted  floor,  a  troop  of  attendants 
bearing  trays  on  the  level  of  their  chins,  who  reverently  place 
on  each  of  the  four  tables  a  tray  containing  fire,  pipes,  and  to- 
bacco. Others  bring  two  kinds  of  tea  in  lacker  cups ;  and  all 
retire,  as  noiselessly  as  they  came,  in  long  procession. 

The  senior  of  the  two  Foreign  Ministers  at  this  time  was  a 
wizened,  ascetic-looking  old  man,  with  no  great  amount  of  in- 
telligence in  his  countenance ;  one  of  the  hereditary  Daimios, 
though  not  of  the  most  powerful  class.  He  had  been  brought 
out  of  a  voluntary  retirement  to  put  on  the  heavy  chains  of 


Chap.  XII.]  THE  FOREIGN  MINISTERS.  286 

office,  and  he  looked  as  if  they  were  but  little  to  his  taste.  One 
can  not  help  thinking  he  must  have  often  wished,  since  the 
signing  of  the  treaties  last  year,  that  he  was  safe  back  in  his 
retreat,  with  monks  for  his  only  companions,  and  a  chaplet  to 
count  for  his  chief  occupation  ! 

The  other  Minister,  recently  appointed  on  the  retirement 
from  ill  health  of  his  predecessor,  worn  out,  it  appears,  by  the 
first  year  of  foreign  affairs,  is  younger  looking,  and  of  less  as- 
cetic countenance ;  a  Daimio  and  a  Kami  also.  He  is  new  to 
office  and  intercourse  with  Foreigners.  One  would  like  to 
know  what  are  his  first  impressions  of  them  and  the  present 
state  of  affairs,  but  you  will  seek  in  vain  in  that  smooth,  hair- 
less face  for  any  information  on  these  points. 

But  now  the  conference  is  opening ;  His  Excellency  has  ex- 
pressed his '  fears  that  you  found  the  day  warm,  and  the  way 
very  long ;  is  glad  to  find  you  have  survived  both,  did  not  die, 
the  other  day,  of  the  cholera,  and  are  as  well  now  as,  the 
warmth  of  the  weather  and  other  circumstances  considered, 
can  well  be  expected  !'  You,  in  your  turn,  have  had  some  fears 
that  you  had  ai'rived  after  time;  you  hope  that  he  had  not 
suffered  from  the  ominous  visitation  of  the  cholera ;  you  re- 
gret that  his  colleague  (whom  you  never  saw  but  once)  had 
been  compelled  to  retire  from  ill  health ;  and  you  finally  trust 
that  his  new  colleague  may  be  able  to  support  the  fatigues  of 
his  onerous  office  without  injury  to  his  health. 

Much  more  of  the  same  kind  passes.  At  last  the  interpret- 
ers feel  the  real  work  is  beginning.  The  foreign  blood  will 
not  bear  an  infinite  prolongation  of  nothings,  and  there  is  a 
steady  plunge  into  deep  water.  The  prologue  is  over,  and  the 
real  play  begins. 

'  The  speaker  wrote  some  days  ago  to  know  when  a  messen- 
ger could  be  dispatched  to  the  Governor  of  Neagata,  with  in- 
structions to  facilitate  the  survey  of  the  harbor  by  one  of 
H.  M.'s  ships.' 

Flapper  No.  1  suggests  an  answer  shall  be  sent,  and  Minis- 
ter replies  accordingly. 

'  An  answer  had  been  received,  omitting  the  essential,  which 
requires  but  a  word ;  when  will  the  instructions  and  messen- 
ger be  sent,  and  how  soon  arrive,  that  the  Consul's  letter  may 
go  by  the  same  opportunity  ?' 

Flappers  consult,  and  Minister,  duly  prompted,  answers, 'As 
soon  as  you  send  the  letter ;  it  will  arrive  in  seven  days.' 

'  Good ;  it  shall  be  sent  to-morrow.  Can  no  interpreter  be 
found  or  spared  ?'  1 1  1 1      > 

'  Not  possible.'  .ajil  viu: 


236  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XU. 

'  Can  instructions  be  given  for  the  permission  to  survey  other 
harbors  if  Neagata  be  found  unfit  ?' 

Much  work  of  Flappers.  Leave  at  last  obtained  for  two 
other  places,  and  names  written  down. 

'A  mail  was  delivered  five  days  ago  at  Kanagawa  to  the  in- 
terpreter at  the  Treasury,  to  be  forwarded  here,  and  has  not 
yet  been  received.' 

'  The  first  Flapper  had  heard  of  it !  Inquiry  should  be 
made ;'  and  I  may  here  mention  that  mail  and  man  disappear- 
ed, and  I  have  never  been  able  to  ascertain  what  became  of 
either. 

'  Some  one  must  be  greatly  to  blame  should  he  have  disap- 
peared ;  great  inconvenience  has  resulted.' 

'  Inquiry  should  be  made,'  urged  Flappers  2  and  3,  and  so 
speaks  the  Minister. 

Another  subject  is  broached.  '  The  Ministers  have  been 
good  enough  to  place  a  set  of  officers  and  an  interpreter,  com- 
prador, etc.,  at  his  orders,  for  which  speaker  is  duly  grateful. 
They  are  no  doubt  placed  there  as  a  mark  of  good- will,  and  for 
his  protection.  But  among  the  number  are  certain  ometskys 
(spies),  a  class  of  officials  who  can  have  nothing  to  do  at  the 
residence  of  a  Foreign  Representative.' 

'  Nothing  with  the  Representative,  but  necessary  to  his  pro- 
tection, to  watch  their  own  peopled 

'  Their  presence  is  nevertheless  objectionable.'  Great  com- 
motion among  Flappers  from  one  to  seven. 

'  It  is  an  institution  of  the  country,  and  can  not  be  departed 
from.' 

'  But  inside  the  Legation  their  presence  is  objectionable.' 

*  It  is  only  to  watch  Japanese  for  his  protection.' 

*  But  the  results  of  this  protection  from  ometskys,  officers, 
and  comprador,  is  a  system  of  interference  and  extortion  which 
is  both  ofiensive  and  intolerable.  Nothing  can  be  bought  at  a 
fair  price,  and  there  have  been  many  instances  of  direct  effiarts 
to  compel  tradesmen  to  add  to  their  charges.' 

'  Inquiry  must  be  made ;  if  the  officers  have  misbehaved, 
they  can  be  changed ;  but  such  things  are  impossible.' 

'  All  interference  between  a  Diplomatic  Agent  and  the  Jap- 
anese dealers,  or  with  his  servant,  is  objected  to,  and  is,  in  point 
of  fact,  contrary  to  treaty  stipulations.' 

'  Those  only  apply  to  the  open  ports.  Of  buying,  and  sell- 
ing, and  dealing  with  Japanese  at  Yeddo,  nothing  is  said.' 

'  But  it  is  stipulated  for  all  British  subjects  that  there  shall 
be  immunity  from  such  official  interference.  And  wherever 
any  have  the  right  to  reside,  there  the  treaty  applies.' 


Chap.xhj         an  official  conference.  237 

*  Only  at  the  open  ports ;  not  at  Yeddo.' 

'  Then,  in  point  of  fact,  it  is  contended  that  such  interference 
is  a  right  on  the  part  of  the  Japanese  Government,  which  they 
are  disposed  to  insist  upon ;  and  a  Diplomatic  Agent  can  not 
have  a  leg  of  pork  put  on  his  table  without  an  official  inter- 
ference, one  certain  result  of  which  is  that  he  pays  double  the 
proper  price  for  it  V 

*  The  interference  is,  on  the  contrary,  to  save  him  from  im- 
position.' 

*  That  is  the  theory ;  but  after  two  months'  experience  of 
the  practice,  it  has  proved  to  be  only  an  instrument  of  impo- 
sition and  extortion,  against  the  continuance  of  which  the 
speaker  protests.' 

*  Inquiry  shall  be  made,  and  if  ground  of  complaint  be  dis- 
covered, another  comprador  shall  be  sent.' 

'  But  there  is  no  occasion  whatever  for  the  services  or  inter- 
position of  the  comprador.  Speaker  has  his  own  servants,  and 
must  insist  upon  the  removal  of  an  official,  whose  sole  employ- 
ment is  to  levy  black-mail  on  every  thing  that  comes  into  his 
house.' 

Flappers  are  still  of  opinion  that  it  is  matter  of  inquiry. 

*  They  may  inquire  as  much  as  they  please,  but  a  distinct 
protest  is  now  entered  against  the  continuance  of  the  whole 
system.' 

The  choice  of  a  site  at  Kanagawa  for  foreign  merchants  to 
rent  and  build  houses  on ;  objections  to  the  frequent  change  of 
governors  at  the  post,  as  detrimental  to  all  dispatch  of  busi- 
ness ;  the  police  of  the  city,  and  better  protection  of  foreign- 
ers ;  the  issue  of  a  proclamation,  and  the  publication  of  the 
treaty,  are  each  successively  touched  upon,  and  more  or  less 
satisfactorily  dealt  with.  The  currency  question  and  coining 
of  more  itziboos  is  reserved  for  the  last,  and  a  step  is  finally 
made  by  an  arrangement  for  the  recoining  of  the  merchants' 
dollars  into  itziboos  at  the  rate  of  16,000  of  the  latter  daily. 
This  closed  the  conference  long  after  sunset. 

The  horses  are  mounted,  and  the  Norimons  left  to  wend 
their  way  more  slowly.  The  moon  is  up,  and  a  fresh  evening 
breeze  makes  the  ride  delightful  thi'ough  the  high  broad  ways 
of  the  official  quarters  skirting  for  some  distance  the  moats. 
Once  emerged  into  the  city  of  shops  and  traffic,  our  friends 
with  their  jingling  staves  and  lanterns  pass  us  on  from  ward 
to  ward.  Some  of  the  streets,  before  we  got  down  to  the 
lower  level  of  the  great  tocado,  that  winds  along  the  edge  of 
the  bay,  are  narrow,  partially  dark,  and  crowded.  My  horse, 
Japanese  though  he  be,  does  not  half  like  the  rattle  of  the 


iS8 


tHREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  XIL 


staves  and  rings  of  the  men  in  office,  and  the  dogs  will  not  get 
up  out  of  his  path,  while  little  children,  equally  perversely,  will 
run  under  his  feet,  to  the  great  discomfort  of  both  rider  and 
horse.  The  streets  are  otherwise  full  of  life  and  movement. 
People  are  wending  to  their  homes  or  the  bathing -houses, 
which,  strongly  lighted,  show  through  their  lattice  bars  and 
open  doors  a  crowd  of  both  sexes  on  opposite  sides,  with  a 
mathematical  line  of  separation.  Gayly  painted  and  figured 
lanterns  are  flitting  to  and  fro,  and  light  up,  somewhat  dimly, 
if  truth  must  be  told,  the  shops,  the  front  where  windows 
would  be  if  in  Europe.  The  tea-houses  are  filling,  and  the 
wild  discords  of  what  they  call  musical  instruments  is  heard 
from  many  of  the  upper  stories.  Men  and  women  both  are 
wending  their  way  homeward,  for  the  streets  are  much  too 


FEMALE   COSTUME 


dark  and  unsafe  to  be  much  frequented  after  night  fairly  sets 
in.  Every  one  by  law,  as  in  China,  is  bound  not  to  stir  out 
after  dark  without  a  lantern  on  which  their  name  is  painted. 
Now  it  is  a  mistress  with  her  child  and  servant  returning,  or  a 
solitary  matron  wending  her  solitary  way,  and  her  own  lan- 
tern-holder ;  or  a  public  singer,  with  her  servant  carrying  her 
instrument,  is  on  her  way  to  some  tea-house  to  furnish  out  the 
evening  amusement.  The  fronts  of  the  houses  are  not  all  shut 
in  yet,  and  every  now  and  then  there  is  a  glimpse  of  an  inte- 
rior, showing  the  master  already  at  bis  evening  meal,  faithfully 


THB  TILLAGE  BBACTT. 


240  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  Xm. 

waited  upon  by  his  wife,  who,  like  Sarah  in  the  tent,  ever  serves 
him  as  her  lord,  and  regards  him  as  her  master,  despite  of  the 
matrimonial  tie.  A  few  tipsy  one-sworded  and  two-sworded 
retainers  are  reeling  homeward  in  noisy  mirth.  And  so  wend- 
ing our  way,  with  scarce  less  clamor  of  iron  rings  and  staves, 
and  often  changing  attendants,  we  turn  up  the  long  avenue 
which  leads  to  the  Legation,  and  forms  the  entrance  to  the 
Temple  of  Tozengee. 


THE   BAY  OP   HAKODADI. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


A  Visit  to  Hakodadi. — The  Lead  Mines. — Governor. — Prospects  of  Trade. — 
Potatoes  and  Salmon  the  great  Staples. 

Toward  the  end  of  September  (1859),  profiting  by  one  of  the 
few  opportunities  which  present  themselves  in  these  latitudes 
for  locomotion,  I  determined  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  most  northern 
of  the  open  ports  in  Japan.  Typhoons  and  equinoctial  gales  are 
apt  to  sweep  through  the  Japanese  seas  about  the  change  of  the 
monsoons  in  no  gentle  mood.  A  gale,  however,  had  just  blown 
itself  out  before  I  left — always  held  the  most  favorable  time 
for  a  start — and  we  had  only  baffling  winds,  blowing  from  ev- 
ery point  of  the  compass  except  the  right  one,  to  contend  with. 


Chap.  XHI.]  JAPANESE  SPECIALTIES.  241 

Some  ten  days  were  consumed  in  getting  over  the  600  miles 
which  separate  Yeddo  from  the  port  of  Hakodadi,  or  Hako- 
date as  it  is  more  generally  pronounced  by  the  Japanese.  But 
the  longest  voyage  must  come  to  an  end  as  well  as  the  longest 
lane,  and  Japan  is  a  country  eminently  adapted  to  teach  this 
sort  of  practical  philosophy.  If  the  winds  are  baffling,  and  the 
currents,  which  you  have  been  assured  run  thirty  knots  in  your 
favor  in  the  twenty-four  hours,  prove  to  be  something  stron- 
ger than  that  against  your  beat  up  the  coast,  and  are  equally 
contrary  when  you  return,  it  is  merely  the  reiteration  of  the 
moral  phenomena  on  shore,  where  nothing  turns  out  as  you 
have  been  led  to  expect  it  by  previous  travelers,  and  nothing 
goes  straight  unless  it  be  the  bravo's  sword,  while  some  un- 
dercui'rent  of  traversing  influences  impedes  your  progress  in 
whichever  direction  you  desire  to  move.  Perseverance,  how- 
ever, in  both  cases  brings  its  reward  sooner  or  later,  and  they 
who  have  not  this  in  their  nature,  and  a  stock  of  patience  per- 
fectly inexhaustible,  will  do  well  to  go  elsewhere  than  Japan. 

Once  entered  the  Bay  of  Hakodadi  indeed,  the  reward  be- 
gins, if,  as  happened  to  us,  the  sun  is  shining,  and  a  few  drift- 
ing clouds  checker  with  fleeting  shadows  the  fine  panorama  of 
hills  which  encircle  the  port.  Completely  land-locked,  easy  of 
access,  spacious  enough  for  the  largest  navy  to  ride  in,  with 
deep  water  and  good  holding-ground,  it  is  the  realization  of  all 
a  sailor's  dreams  as  a  harbor.  Even  to  the  artist  and  lover  of 
the  picturesque,  there  is  much  to  compensate  a  wearisome  voy- 
age. Many  ranges  of  hills  in  graceful  lines  carry  the  eye  far 
into  the  distance,  and  two  remarkable  peaks  give  the  distinct- 
ive features  of  a  volcanic  formation,  from  one  of  which  fire  and 
smoke  are  perceptible  in  the  night.  The  beauty  of  the  shore, 
however,  is  of  a  severe  kind,  for  there  is  little  luxuriance  of  fo- 
liage. Here  and  there  only  a  patch  of  pine,  or  a  wider  sweep 
of  scrub,  breaks  the  surface  of  the  hills.  But  what  tree  and 
foliage  fail  to  give,  cloud  and  sunshine  often  efiect  to  perfection, 
clothing  all  the  mountain  sides  with  purple  and  russet  hues, 
and  giving  a  mantle  of  rich  and  ever- changing  colors  to  the 
barest  headlands  and  most  distant  ranges,  while  junks  and 
boats,  with  their  picturesque  sails,  are  never  wanting  to  give 
life  and  movement  to  the  whole. 

The  town  of  Hakodadi  is  little  better  than  a  long  fishing  vil- 
lage, nestled  round  the  foot  of  an  island-like  promontory,  which 
forms  the  projecting  headland  at  the  eastern  edge  of  the  bay. 
Though  on  a  somewhat  smaller  scale,  it  forcibly  recalls  to  the 
mind  Hongkong,  with  its  northern  exposure.  Nor  is  it  with- 
out some  resemblance  to  Gibraltar,  with  a  long  strip  of  land 


242  tHRfiE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XUL  > 

which  very  well  represents  the  neutral  ground.  Nature  in  the 
midst  of  all  variety  preserves  a  certain  uniformity,  and  fre- 
quently seems  to  repeat  herself.  Whoever  has  traveled  much 
in  either  hemisphere  must  often  have  been  struck  with  the 
striking  identity,  not  only  of  mountain,  valley,  and  river,  in  dif- 
ferent countries,  but  the  similar  combination  of  these  in  diifer- 
ent  quarters  of  the  globe.  The  same  uniformity  amidst  con- 
stant diversity,  which  seems  to  be  the  law  of  the  human  race 
in  its  leading  characteristics,  appears  to  be  no  less  perfectly 
maintained  in  the  physical  conformation  of  the  earth.  There 
are  shady  lanes  and  trim  hedges,  with  glimpses  of  wooded  hill 
suid  cultivated  valley  at  intervals,  which  render  the  environs 
of  Yeddo  so  beautiful  that  they  might  be  transplanted  to  En- 
gland without  any  violence  to  tiie  harmony  of  the  surrounding 
scenery.  The  cathedral  spire  or  village  church  alone  is  want- 
ing to  maintain  the  general  resemblance. 

But  Hakodadi,  not  Yeddo,  must  now  occupy  us.  Let  us  land 
and  see  what  it  offers  of  novelty  or  intei'est.  Unlike  the  shal- 
low Bay  of  Yeddo,  our  boat  goes  freely  up  to  the  steps  of  the 
landing-place  —  an  advantage  only  duly  to  be  estimated  after 
being  punted  a  mile  over  the  shallows,  and  another  mile  shunt- 
ed or  sleighed  over  the  mud !  The  high  street  of  Hakodadi  is 
within  a  few  steps.  The  air  is  crisp,  and  a  northerly  wind  is 
blowing,  so  that  the  nudities  which  first  scare  the  European 
arriving  at  Nagasaki  nowhere  appear,  unless  in  a  large,  many- 
oared  boat,  where  the  men  strip  for  hard  work,  rising  to  the 
oar  with  a  loud  monotonous  chant,  but,  wonderful  to  relate, 
pulling  toward  them  as  in  Europe !  On  shore,  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  is  well  clothed,  and  protected  from  the  cold 
wind,  some  even  enveloping  both  head  and  lower  portion  of 
the  face  in  a  muffler  of  printed  calico,  as  represented  in  the 
engraving  on  p.iQ;o  132.  The  ordinary  costume  of  the  work- 
ing classes  is  a  large  apron  tucked  i-ound  the  waist  for  the 
women,  and  descending  to  the  heels  nearly  (how  they  walk  in 
such  swathing -bands  is  a  mystery),  and  over  all  a  dressing- 
gown,  secured  at  the  waist  by  a  large  band  knotted  behind,  and 
more  or  less  open  in  front.  If  it  rains,  an  oil-paper  cloak  or  a 
mat  is  flung  over  the  shoulders  of  the  men,  and  a  huge  basket 
hat  (of  many  forms,  some  conical,  others  like  a  flat  basket  re- 
versed) is  tied  to  the  head  with  chin-bands.  Thus  equipped, 
with  wooden  pattens  which  lift  them  six  inches  out  of  the  mud, 
they  trudge  on  in  perfect  independence  of  the  elements.  It  is 
fine  to-day,  however,  and  all  are  walking  either  barefooted  or 
with  sandals,  most  ingeniously  retained  by  the  great  toe  only, 
which  is  pushed  through  a  loop:  how  they  keep  them  on  or 


Ohap.  XIU.]      streets  AND  HOUSES  IN  JAPAN. 


243 


febiaj:,e  costume. 


manage  to  walk  in  them  is  one  of  those  things  which,  as  Lord 
Dundreary  would  say, '  No  fellow  can  find  out !' 

I  think  a  broad  street  has  a  pleasant  aspect  always.  There 
is  a  free  circulation  of  air,  of  men,  and  of  beasts ;  there  is  room 
enough  for  every  body  and  every  thing,  an  object  we  find  it 
so  difficult  to  secure  in  overstocked  England.  Elbow-room  is 
one  of  the  luxuries  of  this  life,  and  the  want  of  it  on  board  ship 
is,  to  my  fancy,  not  the  least  of  the  many  disagreeables  whicli 
makes  traveling  by  sea  so  irksome.  Hakodadi  gives  this  one 
element  of  a  pleasant  life  in  abundance.  Thirty  horsemen  may 
ride  abreast  if  they  choose,  and  even  the  very  houses  seem  to 
disdain  to  jostle  each  other.  You  are  prepared  to  respect  the 
owners  of  all  such  spacious  streets,  accordingly,  until,  on  far- 
ther examination,  a  general  poverty  in  the  construction  of  the 
houses,  and  an  aspect  of  penury  both  in  the  interior  and  exte- 
rior, has  the  common  efiect  of  poverty  in  this  sad  world,  of  di- 
minishing your  esteem.  Some  of  them  lift  their  heads  a  little 
higher  than  their  neighbors,  and  make  pretensions  to  a  second 
story,  but  it  is  a  miserable  attempt,  a  sorry  attic  only,  and  all 
below  is  open  to  the  street,  under  a  projecting  roof  and  narrow 
veranda.  Continuing  your  inspection,  much  as  a  prosperous 
trader  eyes  an  unfortunate  creditor  who  is  each  moment  sinking 


244  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XUI. 

lowei*  in  his  estimation,  you  pause  to  inquire  by  what  ingenious 
process  the  good  people  of  Hakodadi  have  succeeded  in  making 
paving-stones  do  the  duty  of  tiles  on  their  roofs  ?  As  far  as  the 
eye  can  stretch,  stones,  nothing  but  stones,  seem  to  cover  the 
tops  of  the  houses.  It  is  as  if  a  street  had  been  unpaved,  and  all 
the  materials  transported  to  the  roof,  ready  for  assault  or  de- 
fense. By  more  minute  attention,  you  may  at  last  discover  a 
thin  layer  of  lath  or  shingle  beneath,  laid  upon  the  raftei-s  which 
support  this  wonderful  agglomeration  of  pebbles  and  young 
boulders  of  all  shapes  and  dimensions.  Such  a  novel  spectacle 
leads  to  reflection,  and  you  involuntarily  exclaim,  'What  a 
windy  land  this  must  be,  to  require  such  prodigious  efforts  to 
keep  the  roof  from  flying  away !  and  what  a  dry  climate !  for, 
though  stones  may  do  very  well  for  weights,  one  never  heard 
of  their  keeping  out  wet !'  At  last  you  meet  a  friendly  inter- 
preter, who  answers  the  inquiry  with  which  you  are  charged. 
'  These  stones  you  marvel  at  so  much  are  the  cheapest  means 
of  keeping  a  roof  over  their  heads ;  sometimes  it  blows  very 
hard,  and  as  thin  layers  of  shingle  are  very  light  (but  a  great 
deal  better  than  nothing),  we  take  this  mode  of  securing  it.* 
To  a  farther  question  he  answers,  'Ah !  the  rain  ?  Yes,  it  does 
rain  occasionally — in  the  wet  season  for  weeks,  and  often  at 
other  seasons  very  heavily,  and  a  good  deal  of  water  does  run 
down  between  the  stones,  but  we  find  a  dry  corner,  and  put 
up  our  umbrellas,  and,  besides,  we  have  excellent  oil-paper 
cloaks.'  '  And  your  furniture  ?'  '  Have  you  not  been  long 
enough  in  Japan  to  know  our  habits  are  too  simple  for  such 
useless  and  cumbrous  appliances  ?  Tables  and  chairs,  which 
you  Europeans,  we  are  told,  can  not  manage  to  live  without, 
are  to  us  superfluities ;  our  matting  and  quilts  suffice  for  beds, 
bamboo  or  lacker  make  our  pillows ;  what  else  does  man  want  ? 
You  build  houses  ten  times  as  large  as  is  necessary  for  your 
accommodation,  and  more  than  your  income  can  keep  up — so 
I  heard  from  a  Dutch  friend  at  Nagasaki — merely  that  you 
may  have  room  to  stow  away  an  endless  succession  of  ugly 
square  and  oblong  pieces  of  timber,  tortured  into  various 
shapes  and  uses.  We  build  houses  to  live  in,  not  for  ostenta- 
tion, and  still  less  as  store-rooms  for  useless  things,  and  think 
ourselves  not  behind  you  in  wisdom !'  Enlightened  by  this 
Japanese  philosophy,  I  looked  into  their  shops  to  see  if  their 
goods  were  of  the  same  primitive  and  unsophisticated  charac- 
ter, and  found  very  little  beyond  the  commonest  articles  of 
consumption.  This  is  a  population  of  fishermen,  and  the  bay 
abounds  in  salmon,  plaice,  and  various  other  fish.  Almost  ev- 
ery stall  in  the  street  was  stocked  with  fine  salmon,  weighing 


Chap.  XIII.]  PRODUCE  OF  HAKODADI.  245 

from  fifteen  to  twenty  pounds,  many  of  them  still  alive,  at  rates 
varying  from  half  an  itziboo  to  a  whole  one  (from  9c?.  to  1«. 
60?.).  Unfortunately,  they  were  not  in  season,  being  soft  and 
ready  to  spawn ;  but  that  seemed  no  impediment  to  their  be- 
ing caught,  and,  it  is  to  be  presumed,  eaten  by  the  Japanese. 
Every  second  shop  almost  presented  long  rows  of  the  same 
produce  dried  and  salted,  three  for  an  itziboo,  or  sixpence 
each !  A  great  quantity  of  potatoes — '  real  Irish  potatoes,'  as 
one  of  the  interpreters  assured  me  (of  Irish  extraction,  he 
meant,  perhaps),  are  grown  here,  to  judge  by  their  abundance 
and  cheapness.  In  the  town  they  are  seventy-five  cents  or  a 
dollar  a  picul  (130  lbs.),  but  in  the  villages  I  found  they  might 
be  bought  for  a  third  of  the  sum,  before  the  compradoric  sys- 
tem, especially  adapted  to  the  use  of  Foreigners,  had  added  its 
extortions  and  profits.  Teal,  three  for  an  itziboo  (or  sixpence 
each),  wild  ducks,  somewhat  dearer,  snipe,  golden  plover,  all 
were  there,  and  I  was  told,  during  the  previous  winter,  that 
the  crews  of  the  whalers  were  chiefly  fed  upon  deer  and  bear's 
flesh,  as  the  cheapest  meat.  Think  of  that,  ye  epicures,  and 
instead  of  a  shooting  or  a  fishing  season  in  Norway,  with  its 
hackneyed  fjelds  and  fiords,  come  to  Japan  to  catch  salmon, 
hunt  the  deer,  the  boar,  and  the  bear,  and,  if  you  like  it,  shoot 
pheasant,  snipe,  teal,  and  wild-fowl  without  stint.  It  is  rather 
far  ofi^,  it  is  true — some  sixty  odd  days — but  then  think  of  the 
game  and  the  novelty,  to  say  nothing  of  the  chance  of  being 
becarved  by  two-sworded  Samourai  in  pursuit  of  their  game. 
One  would  expect  fur  and  skins  to  be  abundant,  and  so  they 
are,  but  unfortunately  the  Japanese  do  not  understand  dress- 
ing them,  and  are  far  inferior  to  the  Chinese  in  this  art.  I 
saw  some  noble  bearskins  priced  at  about  £l  sterling.  Sea- 
otter  skins  of  a  finer  quality  I  also  saw,  but  from  £3  to  £5  each 
were  asked.  Great  quantities  of  deerskins  and  horns  were  in 
the  market.  Some  of  the  former,  made  into  soft  leather,  and 
stamped  with  not  ungraceful  patterns,  seemed  well  fitted  to 
make  good  coverings  for  chairs  and  couches ;  they  were  about 
a  dollar  apiece.  Hides  and  deer-horns,  with  various  kinds  of 
furs,  I  should  think,  might  ultimately  become  articles  of  export 
to  a  considerable  extent. 

Wandering  on  through  a  double  line  of  open  shops  nearly  a 
mile  long,  it  was  soon  evident  that  the  bulk  of  the  articles  were 
such  only  as  are  required  for  daily  consumption  in  food,  cloth- 
ing, and  utensils,  by  a  large  but  poor  population.  The  town 
was  said  to  contain  about  6000  inhabitants,  and  the  island  of 
Yeso  only  seems  to  contain  one  larger  centre  of  commerce  or 
population  in  Matsumai^  a  sea-port  some  sixty  miles  along  the 


246  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XIII. 

coast,  and  said  to  contain  60,000  inhabitants.  Here  and  there 
in  the  shops  were  some  poor  specimens  of  lacker-ware.  Con- 
siderable stores  of  sea-weed,  sea-slug,  dried  mushrooms,  and 
other  delicacies  suited  to  the  taste  of  the  Chinese  and  Japan- 
ese rice-eating  populations,  appeal'  to  exist  here,  and  will  prob- 
ably form  another  class  of  exports  from  hence  to  China.  Some 
silk  fabrics  were  to  be  seen,  of  an  inferior  kind,  and  there  is  no 
want  of  Japanese  printed  calicoes.  Sulphur,  from  the  neigh- 
boring Loochoo  Islands,  is  spoken  of  as  offering  a  chance  of 
large  and  profitable  trade ;  and  there  are  lead  mines  within 
twenty  miles,  the  property  of  the  Government,  which,  if  made 
available  for  foreign  markets,  would  undoubtedly  very  soon 
create  both  a  considerable  and  profitable  trade.  Of  this  I  feel, 
however,  there  is  little  immediate  prospect ;  to  say  nothing  of 
their  political  economy,  which  denies  the  right  and  contests 
the  wisdom  of  any  one  genei-ation  drawing  more  from  the  min- 
eral productions  of  a  country  than  suffices  for  its  own  wants, 
lest  the  whole  should  be  exhausted,  and  the  interests  of  poster- 
ity sacrificed,  they  seem  yet  in  their  infancy  as  to  the  adapta- 
tion of  steam  and  other  mechanical  or  scientific  appliances  for 
the  profitable  working  of  mines. 

Wishing,  however,  to  judge  for  myself,  and  also  to  take  a 
long  ride  into  the  country,  I  went  to  these  lead  mines,  of  which 
I  had  heard  so  much.  Mounted  on  a  good  little  island  pony, 
warranted  to  carry  me  thirty-five  miles,  the  stated  distance 
there  and  back,  I  took  my  way  along  the  sea-shore,  after  pass- 
ing through  the  interminable  high  street  of  Hakodadi.  At 
first  the  road  was  good,  with  sand-hills  on  either  hand,  and  the 
blue  waters  of  the  bay  stretching  away  to  the  left ;  while  in 
the  farther  distance,  towering  above  several  ranges  of  hills,  ap- 
peared two  peaked  and  cone-like  mountains,  looking  as  though 
they  were  covered  with  snow — the  reflection  of  the  sun,  prob- 
ably, on  some  bare  surface,  or  lava  descending  from  the  vol- 
canic crater.  From  one  of  these  at  night  there  is  a  great  glare 
from  the  apex  of  the  cone. 

Unlike  the  road  to  Yeddo,  the  traffic  here  is  small.  You 
meet  no  travelers,  and  only  a  few  pack-horses  laden  with  the 
produce  of  the  neighboring  fields,  with  charcoal  from  the 
woods,  or  lead  from  the  mines.  After  continuing  our  ride 
eight  or  nine  miles,  we  entered  a  considerable  village  and  pro- 
ceeded to  a  house  of  entertainment,  to  bait  the  horses  and  get 
some  breakfast  ourselves. 

The  host  came  with  his  gliding  obeisance,  sliding  his  hands 
down  his  knees  as  he  bent  his  body  at  a  right  angle,  desiring 
to  know  our  wants.    My  companion,  the  Russian  Consul,  had 


CrtAt.Xm.]     A  BREAKFAST.— COUNTRY  ROADS.  247 

not  trusted  too  raucli  to  their  powers  of  supplying  a  meal,  and 
produced  out  of  the  groom's  wallet  cold  teal,  chicken,  and  mut- 
ton, a  large  case  of  Chinese  tea  already  made,  and  good  bread 
of  Japanese  flour,  flanked  by  a  bottle  of  sherry.  What  we 
wanted,  therefore,  was  hot  water,  cups,  hard-boiled  eggs,  and 
fire  for  the  cigars ;  and  these  were  speedily  brought  in,  not  by 
a  bright-eyed  houri,  but  by  a  shrill-voiced  little  urchin,  who 
squinted  abominably. 

In  the  course  of  the  repast,  one  or  two  of  the  gentler  sex, 
with  teeth  as  black  as  ebony,  favored  us  with  their  company 
and  an  inspection,  as  we  lay  stretched  on  the  mats.  Presently 
our  host,  not  seeing,  I  suppose,  how  a  good  bill  was  to  be  made 
out  of  hard  eggs  and  hot  water,  brought  in  a  tray  of  small 
dishes,  and  tried  to  tempt  us  with  a  huge  salmon  that  did  not 
look  over  fresh.  He  took  our  refusal  to  be  seduced,  however, 
very  good-humoredly ;  and  although  we  returned  in  the  even- 
ing to  make  another  similar  meal,  was  well  content  with  two 
itziboos  (three  shillings),  having  gently  hinted  that  one  and  a 
half  would  do,  and  saw  us  blandly  out  of  the  door  with  a  salu- 
tation. Clear  proof  that  we  were  far  out  of  the  beat  of  Japan- 
ese officials,  and  could  make  our  own  bargain ! 

Refreshed  by  our  breakfast,  we  began  to  turn  inland  to  the 
screen  of  hills  which  skirt  the  bay,  and  soon  came  upon  some 
roads  as  bad  as  any  '■caminha  reaT  in  Spain.  My  horse's 
straw  shoes,  having  already  been  half  shuffled  off,  were  tripping 
him  up  at  every  step,  and  compelled  me  to  dismount  in  order 
to  get  rid  of  them  altogether.  An  Englishman  riding  with 
the  fore  feet  of  his  horse  muffled  in  straw  slippers  might  fur- 
nish a  subject  for  'Punch.'  I  am  happy  to  say  that  at  both, 
the  Legations  this  absurdity  has  been  got  rid  of,  and  means 
found  of  teaching  the  Japanese  to  shoe  our  horses  properly 
•with  iron,  and  more  than  one  of  the  Daimios,  I  was  told,  had 
followed  the  good  example.  A  Japanese  saddler,  employed  by 
us  for  repairs,  declared  he  could  not  do  our  work,  he  had  such 
an  extensive  order  for  English  saddles.  I  heard  later,  how- 
ever, that  the  Daimio,  on  pushing  his  sandaled  foot  into  the 
stirrup,  found  it  very  difficult  to  keep  it  there,  and  ended  by 
anathematizing  the  Foreign  invention,  and  returning  to  the 
customs  and  saddlery  of  his  ancestors. 

But  to  return  to  the  road.  It  had  rained  heavily  in  the 
night,  and  in  the  midst  of  a  sea  of  mud  were  more  solid  rollers 
of  earth ;  in  fact,  the  best  possible  imitation  on  a  large  scale  of 
a  '  corduroy  road.'  I  was  excessively  puzzled  to  make  out  by 
what  process  such  an  effect  had  been  produced,  until,  watching 
some  horses  before  me,  I  saw  the  ruts  on  each  side  of  thess 


248  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XIII. 

regular  furrows  exactly  corresponded  with  the  stride  of  each, 
and  that  every  horse,  within  an  inch,  trod  on  the  selfsame  lines. 
Japanese  ponies  seem  as  well  trained,  therefore,  as  their  mas- 
ters, and  tread  in  each  other's  footsteps  with  a  persistence  and 
closeness  that  never  varies  or  fails.  The  trafl&c  of  the  pack- 
horses  was  evidently  great  here :  wood  and  charcoal  from  the 
hills  often  passed,  and  soon  we  ourselves  entered  into  the 
mountain  region,  after  skirting  along  a  valley,  and  fording  a 
noisy  Gave  (as  such  a  stream  would  be  called  in  the  German 
hills).  This  operation  was  repeated  three  times,  and  as  the 
river  ran  rapidly,  with  bad  footing,  and  water  to  the  pony's 
girths,  it  was  not  without  a  chance  of  a  ducking.  Striking 
soon  into  the  heart  of  the  wooded  hills,  and  often  crossing 
smaller  tributary  streams,  we  made  our  way  along  a  narrow 
path,  gradually  ascending  until  we  reached  the  foot  of  the  hill 
containing  the  lead  mines.  The  wild  vine  festooned  many  of 
the  trees,  and  bore  grapes  black  and  sour ;  the  sycamore  and 
the  pine  were  there,  and  a  great  quantity  of  dwarf  oak  and 
scrub,  but  scarcely  any  large  timber.  We  mounted  the  hill- 
side by  a  rough  and  rather  abrupt  ascent,  and  soon  came  upon 
signs  of  the  miner's  occupation.  A  low  range  of  houses,  then  a 
quantity  of  debris  from  a  pit,  a  washing-house  with  troughs  for 
the  ore,  a  smelting-house  (or  hut  rather),  and,  lastly,  the  mouth 
of  an  '■adW — a  horizontal  gallery  leading  into  the  heart  of  the 
hill.  Being  provided  with  an  official  order,  a  guide  was  imme- 
diately apiDoiuted,  and,  putting  on  the  coarse  miner's  dress,  far- 
ther armed  with  two  dried  bunches  of  bamboo  as  torches,  we 
crept  into  the  damp,  dirty,  dismal  scene  of  the  miner's  labors. 
Having  seriously  endangered  our  skulls  against  the  low  roofs 
and  occasionally  pi'ojecting  beams  (all  the  galleries  were  sup- 
ported by  timber),  and  plentifully  imbibed  through  boots  and 
stockings  the  water  on  the  floors,  we  reached  at  last  some  of 
the  points  they  were  woi'king  at.  No  doubt  this  would  be  an 
excellent  opportunity  for  expatiating  very  learnedly  on  all  the 
scientific  facts  connected  with  the  deposit  of  metal  in  the  bow- 
els of  the  earth,  and  all  the  theories  proposed  in  explanation ; 
but,  unfortunately,  or  fortunately  as  others  may  judge,  I  make 
no  pretensions  to  any  extensive  practical  or  scientific  acquaint- 
ance with  the  subject,  and  shall  content  myself  with  saying 
that  it  has  all  the  appearance  of  possessing  many  rich  veins ; 
but  the  means  and  appliances  of  the  Japanese  are  very  primi- 
tive, and  I  presume  they  can  only  work  as  deep  by  shafts  as 
their  adits,  cut  horizontally  in  the  side  of  the  hills  at  a  lower 
point,  shall  enable  them  to  efiect  drainage. 

I  found  that  the  Governor,  on  the  return  of  the  party,  was 


Chap.  XIH.]  INSTALLATION  OF  CONSUL.  249 

very  anxious  to  learn  whether  the  mode  of  working  in  Europe 
was  greatly  superior,  and  what  improvements  could  be  suggest- 
ed. He  was  told  we  undoubtedly  possessed  great  advantages 
in  scientific  knowledge  and  the  use  of  steam-engines,  but  he 
gave  no  indication  of  a  desire  to  resort  to  such  means.  And, 
indeed,  if,  as  he  alleged,  they  wanted  all  the  produce  of  the 
mine  for  their  own  use,  and  that  simply  for  bullets  to  practice 
fire-arms,  either  the  produce  must  be  marvelously  small,  or  the 
consumption  in  ball-practice  must  be  truly  alarming,  and  Eu- 
ropean Powers  should  look  to  it ! 

I  have  little  more  to  tell  of  Hakodadi.  Whether  its  magnif- 
icent bay  will  ever  see  a  fleet  of  merchantmen  and  a  prosper- 
ous foreign  trade,  it  would  be  bold  in  any  one  to  say  at  this 
moment.  It  is  at  present  chiefly  used  by  whalers.  The  year 
previous  thirty  called  in,  twenty-nine  American  and  one  French 
— no  English.  Sulphur,  lead,  and  Chinese  edibles,  with  furs 
and  deer-horns,  are  at  present  all  that  ofier,  and  these  not  in 
large  quantities.  But  all  must  have  a  beginning,  and  every 
thing  was  at  its  commencement  here.  The  people  seemed 
perfectly  free  from  all  trace  of  ill  will — a  simple  and  good-hu- 
mored race.* 

I  had  to  install  the  British  Consul,  and  anticipated  some  dif- 
ficulty in  his  location,  from  the  sheer  want  of  accommodation 
in  this  town  of  6000  inhabitants.  There  were,  in  truth,  but 
four  temples.  Two  Avere  in  the  occupation  of  the  Russian 
Consul  and  his  stafi^,  one  had  been  given  up  to  the  American 
commercial  agent,  and  the  fourth,  and  best  incomparably,  was 
getting  ready  for  the  second  Governor,  absent  on  a  tour  of  in- 
spection. No  other  building,  public  or  private,  existed  in  the 
place  that  could  be  made  to  answer.  This  was  certainly  an 
awkward  state  of  afiairs !  I  could  not  leave  a  Consul  with  his 
wife  and  family  without  a  habitation  possessing  some  reason- 
able amount  of  accommodation.  It  is  very  true,  my  ideas  of 
what  was  reasonable  and  the  Governor's  were  likely  to  be 
very  different,  as  he  very  delicately  hinted  the  day  I  took 
leave  of  him,  and  in  a  way  too  characteristic  to  be  forgotten. 
After  all  was  settled,  and  the  temple  hxid  been  obtained,  de- 
spite the  seemingly  insuperable  obstacle  of  its  having  been  ap- 

*  Shortly  before  I  left  my  post  to  return  to  Europe,  I  am  sorry  to  say  very 
unsatisfactory  reports  reached  me  from  the  acting  Consul  of  a  manifest  de- 
terioration in  this  respect,  plainly,  as  he  thought,  the  work  of  the  officials, 
for  no  Daimios'  retainers  are  there  on  whom  to  lay  the  blame.  A  British 
subject,  an  American,  and  a  Russian  had  at  difTerent  periods  been  attacked 
with  drawn  swords,  and  one  very  severely  wounded,  by  men  in  the  employ- 
ment of  the  Government. 

L2 


IBO 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  XIII. 


propi'iated  to  the  use  of  the  arriving  Governor,  the  highest  au- 
thority in  the  island,  I  rose  to  leave.     The  Governor  then  ap- 
proached, and,  to  my  surprise,  took  me  by  the  hand,  evidently 
wishing  to  lead  me  somewhere.     Thus  led,  I  followed  him  into 
a  corridor  at  the  back  of  the  room  where  the  interview  had 
taken  place,  and  to  the  left  he  showed  me  a  little  room,  some 
nine  feet  by  six,  and  said  very  quietly,  'This  is  where  the 
new  Governor  will  be  accommodated  when  he  arrives.'     I  felt 
the  reproach  it  conveyed,  and  could  only  smile,  apologetically 
observing  that  'probably  he  had  neither  wife  nor  children 
with  him,  and,  above  all,  no  four-post  bedsteads  and  sofas,  or 
dining-room  tables,  any  one  of  which  would  fill  up  the  whole 
room !'     We  parted  excellent  friends  after  this  final  passage 
.,of  arras,  and  I  often  met  him  in  the  following  year  at  Yeddo  as 
one  of  the  Governors  of  Foreign  Affairs.     He  was  a  fine  old 
..man,  quiet  and  intelligent,  and  a  very  good  specimen  of  the 
'better  class  of  Japanese  ofiicials  employed  in  the  high  offices 
Mof  the  administration. 

{' '  On  the  ninth  day  after  ray  arrival,  the  temple  for  which  so 
hard  a  battle  had  been  fought  was  taken  possession  of,  a  fine 
flag-staff,  with  the  assistance  of  the  '  Highflyer's'  raeu,  was  got 
up,  and  the  Union  Jack  was  hoisted  with  a  royal  salute  from 
,^he  squadron,  to  mark  the  first  time  the  flag  had  floated  over 
a  British  consulate  in  the  port. 

The  next  day  H.M.S.  'Highflyer'  steamed 
out  of  the  harbor,  to  be  followed  in  a  brief  in- 
terval b^'  the  other  two  vessels,  and  the  British 
Consul  would  then  be  left  alone,  with  one  Brit- 
ish subject  to  govern,  and  only  two  American 
citizens,  and  a  Russian  Consul  with  his  staff 
for  all  society.  I  could  not  help  thinking  the 
bay  must  look  desolate  enough  when  no  Eu- 
ropean ship  is  in  its  waters,  and  only  half  a 
dozen  people  of  European  extraction  on  shore! 
A  functionary  can  hardly  be  much  to  be  envied, 
though  a  fortune  and  honors  were  at  the  end 
of  a  short  terra.  As  neither  of  them  usually 
fall  to  the  lot  of  British  Consuls,  I  could  only 
hope  the  Consul  of  Hakodadi  raight  carry  with- 
in hira  and  about  hira  something  to  compen- 
BociETY  OP  HAKo-  satc  such  utter  isolation  and  banishment  in  the 
;  a>iuDi — A  rx^B,    prime  of  life.  >  t 


[>vjv  ^  virt  Kit 


-  ,   .  ..      -liia 

ll/riit)  til'vn 

)  Mfjla  loom 


CttAP.XIV.l  A  MURDER  AND  A  B'lRfi.  251 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

Murder  of  French  Consul's  Servant  at  Yokohama. — The  Grold  Currency 
Question  again. — Tycoon's  Palace  burned  down. — Proposition  of  Japan- 
ese Ministers  to  stop  all  Official  Business  in  consequence. 

I  RETURNED  near  the  end  of  October.  No  very  stirring  in- 
cident had  occurred  in  my  absence  of  nearly  a  month.  The 
appearance  of  improvement  in  our  prospects  when  I  left,  though 
unchanged  during  my  absence,  was  unfortunately  not  of  long 
duration.  Early  in  November  the  foreign  community  at  Yoko- 
hama were  startled  by  a  murderous  and  unprovoked  attack 
upon  the  servant  of  one  of  their  number,  who  at  the  time  was 
officiating  as  vice-consul  of  France — a  repetition,  in  all  its  chief 
features,  of  the  foul  murder  perpetrated  on  the  Russians.  The 
servant  was  a  Chinaman,  but  dressed  very  much  like  a  foreign- 
er, and,  it  was  thought,  might  have  been  mistaken  for  one.  He 
was  attacked  by  a  man  with  a  drawn  sword  in  the  middle  of 
the  day,  and  close  to  the  house  of  his  master  in  the  foreign  set- 
tlement, pursued  some  distance,  and  frightfully  gashed  before 
he  gained  the  entrance  of  one  of  the  Compounds.  He  lingered 
a  few  days,  and  then  died ;  several  of  the  wounds  had  laid 
open  the  cavities  both  of  the  chest  and  abdomen.  Neither  the 
murderer  nor  his  motive  were  ever  known — to  the  foreigners, 
at  least — and  no  satisfaction  could  be  obtained.  Various  mat- 
ters, this  among  the  rest,  took  me  down  to  Kanagawa  on  No- 
vember 11.  I  noted  the  date,  because  as  I  proceeded  on  my 
road  I  saw  a  great  fire  had  broken  out  in  Yeddo,  and  it  proved 
to  be  the  Tycoon's  castle  that  was  lighting  up  the  sky  far  and 
near,  and  sending  up  a  dense  column  of  smoke  drifting  before 
the  wind.  In  the  middle  of  the  night  I  received  a  courier  from 
the  Ministers  of  Foreign  Affairs  to  inform  me  of  the  event,  and 
begging  that  no  official  communications  might  be  sent,  as  they 
were  in  constant  attendance  on  the  Tycoon  in  consequence, 
and  could  not  possibly  enter  into  any  business  for  some  time 
to  come. 

The  export  of  the  gold  currency  had  been  carried  on  to  sach 
an  extent  by  the  foreigners  that  the  Government  was  becom- 
ing not  only  indignant  at  what  they  regarded  as  an  outrage- 
ous act  of  spoliation,  but  seriously  alarmed  for  the  consequen- 
ces in  the  utter  impoverishment  of  the  country.  It  was,  in- 
deed, the  renewal  of  the  old  grief,  when  Portuguese  and  Span* 


262  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XIV. 

iards,  in  the  first  century  of  foreign  intercourse,  awakened  the 
fears  of  the  then  Rulers,  and  roused  their  indignation  by  ship- 
ping off  all  the  gold  bullion  and  currency  of  the  country  they 
could  put  their  hands  on.  It  was,  no  doubt,  one  of  the  princi- 
pal causes  of  the  determined  hatred  with  which  Taiko-sama 
and  his  successors  pursued  their  policy  of  extermination  and 
entire  seclusion.  We  seemed  threatened  with  a  similar  dan- 
ger from  precisely  similar  causes.  It  was  long  before  I  could 
persuade  the  Ministers  that  the  true  remedy  lay  in  their  own 
hands,  and  they  only  had  to  put  an  end  to  the  disproportion 
existing  between  the  relative  value  of  their  gold  and  silver, 
compared  with  the  rates  ruling  in  the  European  market.  All 
over  the  rest  of  the  world  the  proportion  was  as  1  to  15  or 
thereabouts ;  in  Japan  it  was  but  1  to  3 — that  is,  four  silver 
itziboos  (a  dollar  and  a  third  in  weight)  would  buy  a  kobang 
of  gold,  worth,  in  China  and  elsewhere,  18s.  4^c?.,  or  more  than 
three  times  that  amount  of  silver.  With  the  means  before 
them  of  tripling  or  quadrupling  their  capital  by  a  single  opera- 
tion, and  that  five  or  six  times  in  the  year,  by  purchasing  gold 
for  silver,  how  vain  it  was  to  speak  to  merchants  of  the  danger 
or  impolicy  of  entering  upon  such  a  trafiic,  and  rousing  all  the 
fears  and  hostility  of  the  country !  It  would  have  been  as  idle 
as  to  talk  to  the  winds.  There  is  a  limit,  I  suppose,  beyond 
which  human  nature  can  not  resist  temptation,  and  mercantile 
human  nature  may  well  be  expected  to  break  down  before  a 
certain  prospect  of  200  per  cent,  six  times  over  in  the  year 
without  risk,  whether  the  trade  could  be  shown  to  be  illegal 
or  not.  Indeed,  however  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the  treaty 
and  the  intention  of  the  contracting  parties,  it  had,  by  inad- 
vertence probably,  been  distinctly  stipulated  that  all  gold  and 
silver  coin  might  be  expoi'ted,  though  nothing  could  have  been 
farther  from  the  intention  of  the  Japanese  government  than  to 
leave  a  door  open  for  emptying  the  country  of  the  precious 
metals.  Equally  idle  and  abortive  must  prove  any  eflbrts  they 
could  make  to  stop  it  by  custom-house  or  repressive  measures. 
I  told  them  this  from  the  beginning,  and  where  the  remedy 
lay,  warning  them  of  the  danger  of  delay.  But  it  was  not  un- 
til they  were  nearly  goaded  into  desperation  that  they  would 
listen,  or  at  least  act,  and  protect  themselves  by  altering  the 
relative  value  standard  of  the  gold  and  silver  in  their  currency. 
Partly,  also,  the  business  on  which  I  came  down  had  refer- 
ence to  numerous  complaints  which  reached  me  of  irregulari- 
ties about  the  exchange  of  dollars  at  the  custom-house.  They 
had  entered  into  an  engagement  to  exchange  a  certain  quan- 
tity every  day  for  the  merchants,  and,  of  course,  impartially; 


Chai-.XIV.]  a  gold  epidemic.  253 

but,  according  to  all  accounts,  nothing  could  be  more  scandal- 
ous than  the  partiality  with  which  the  itziboos  wore  distribu- 
ted among  tlie  ditFerent  members  of  the  foreign  community,  un- 
less it  were  the  preposterous  nature  of  the  demands  made  upon 
them,  and  the  violence  and  unseemly  scramble  among  the  for- 
eigners themselves  for  undue  proportions,  in  collusion  with 
some  of  the  custom-house  officials.  No  doubt  it  outraged  the 
Japanese  authorities  all  the  more  that  it  was  very  well  known 
what  was  the  motive  for  all  this  violence  and  clamor.     The 

*  merchants'  wanted  itziboos  to  traffic  in  buying  up  the  gold 
coinage  of  the  empire,  and  shipping  it  off  to  China,  whereby 
they  realized  a  profit  of  cent,  per  cent,  at  the  lowest  computa- 
tion, even  when  the  price  of  kobangs  went  up,  and  could  turn 
their  capital  and  double  it  in  two  months.  No  wonder  a  sort 
of  delirium  came  upon  them.  Trade !  what  were  the  miser- 
able profits  upon  transactions  in  the  buying  and  selling  of  for- 
eign and  Japanese  produce  compared  to  this?  Who  would 
look  at  tea  and  silk,  with  all  the  risks  of  falling  markets,  in  face 
of  a  steady  and  certain  exchange  of  silver  against  Japanese 
gold,  with  never  less  than  100  per  cent. gain? 

The  custom-house  endeavored  to  stem  this  impetuous  flood 
of  demands  for  itziboos  by  requiring  signed  requisitions  from 
each  person  applying.  Vain  effort.  Mrs.  Partington's  trying 
to  keep  out  the  Atlantic  with  her  mop  could  not  be  more  fu- 
tile. Names !  there  was  no  want  of  names.  Every  merchant 
had  a  hundred  friends  here,  at  Shanghae,  in  every  quarter  of 
the  globe,  who  wanted  itziboos,  and  to  make  cent,  per  cent, 
profit  in  these  newly-discovered  gold  diggings !  Who  can  want 
friends  or  constituents  with  such  prizes  in  his  hands?  And 
if  bona  fide  names  were  not  forthcoming,  then  '  Snooks'  and 

*  Tooks,' '  Bosh'  and  '  Moses,' '  Messrs.  Nonsense  and  Hook'em' 
supplied  the  deficiency,  and  became  frequent  applicants  for 
sums  so  fabulous  that  a  life  would  not  suffice  to  have  counted 
the  coins,  and  a  line  of  thirty  figures  could  not  express  the 
amount !  In  fact,  the  community  seemed  to  have  gone  utterly 
mad.  The  prospect  of  such  unbounded  wealth  had  proved 
too  much  for  their  brains,  and  they  seemed  threatened  with 
the  fate  of  the  poor  man  suddenly  become  possessed  of  a 
£20,000  prize  in  the  lottery,  and  who  went  from  the  lottery-of- 
fice to  Bedlam  in  a  state  of  raving  lunacy.  Nor  was  it  con- 
fined to  merchants.  An  American  frigate  coming  into  port 
was  seized  with  the  same  epidemic.  One  officer  resigned  his 
commission,  and  instantly  freighted  a  ship  and  started  a  firm ; 
and  nearly  every  other  officer  in  the  ship,  finding  by  the  favor 
of  the  custom-house  an  unlimited  supply  of  itziboos,  as  they 


254  THREE  YEAKS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XIV. 

were  about  to  take  the  embassy  over  to  Amei'ica,  entered  large- 
ly into  profitable  operations  for  converting  silver  into  gold ! 

The  main  fault  lay  no  doubt  with  the  Japanese  themselves ; 
but  when  the  day  of  reckoning  and  inquiry  came  as  to  the 
source  of  these  disorders  and  scandals,  mutual  recriminations 
abounded.  From  the  Japanese  came  complaints  that  they 
were  borne  down  and  bewildered  by  clamor  and  violence; 
from  the  foreigners,  that  they  met  with  no  proper  attention  to 
reasonable  demands ;  that  they  were  even  recommended  to  sign 
requisitions  for  preposterous  sums ;  that  there  was  gross  par- 
tiality in  the  distribution  of  the  coins,  a  system  of  vexatious  pro- 
crastination, etc.,  etc.,  without  end !  Japanese  and  foreigners 
seemed  equally  to  have  had  a  fit  of  insanity ;  the  first  from 
:  fear  and  rage  combined,  and  the  second  from  the '  auri  sacra 
fames^  the  unquenched  and  unquenchable  thirst  for  gold,  more 
gold,  and  still  gold ! 

It  would  be  difficult  to  estimate  how  much  and  disastrous 
the  influence  these  unfortunate  speculations  and  bickerings  ex- 
ercised on  the  Japanese  mind.  The  exchange  of  itziboos  (in- 
tended as  a  facility  to  foster  a  legitimate  trade,  but  systemat- 
ically and  perseveriiigly  devoted  to  the  buying  up  of  their  gold 
coinage,  which  was  daily  shipped  off  in  large  quantities  to  their 
despair)  became  at  last  their  one  absorbing  thought !  There 
can  be  no  doubt  it  tended  much  to  excite  feelings  of  hostility, 
and  to  array  all  their  prejudices  against  the  foreigner,  his  trade, 
and  all  that  belonged  to  him  or  was  connected  with  his  pres- 
ence in  the  country.  It  equally  certainly  and  seriously  warped 
tlieir  better  judgment  in  regard  to  the  possible  benefits  of  for- 
eign commerce.  It  was  about  this  time  that  they  first  began 
to  exhibit  a  desire,  which  soon  ripened  into  a  distinct  proposi- 
tion, to  defer  the  opening  of  any  more  ports  for  a  term  of 
years,  and  even,  in  the  interval,  to  limit  the  exports  from  those 
already  opened.  Many  were  the  discussions,  both  viva  voce 
and  on  paper,  to  which  these  reiterated  attempts  to  nullify  the 
treaties  led.  One  result  of  which  was  to  give  a  considerable 
insight  into  their  system  of  political  economy  and  ethics ;  and 
perhaps  the  information  thus  gained  can  nowhere  be  more  ap- 
propriately given  than  in  this  place,  while  on  the  subject  of 
commercial  rights  and  tendencies. 

In  the  course  of  the  discussions  which  followed  the  inquiry 
I  instituted  in  regard  to  these  injurious  proceedings,  the  Gov- 
ernor of  Kanagawa  came  more  than  once  to  see  me ;  and  when 
his  heart  was  opened,  or  his  tongue  only  perhaps  loosened,  by 
frequent  libations  of  Chartreuse,  which  the  Consul  had  placed 
oa  the  table,  he  showed  a  great  desire  to  understand  what  was 


Cjt^Ai%  XIV,  J  JAPANESE  REGRETS.  ^66 

the  custom-house  system  in  China,  evidently  impressed  ^vith 
the  idea  that  whereas  the  Chinese  by  it  got  all  the  revenue, 
the  Japanese,  by  their  system,  had  only  trouble  for  their  pains, 
■with  a  supplementary  budget  of  expenses.  When  he  heard 
what  were  the  proceeds  of  the  Shanghae  customs,  some  two 
millions  of  taels  per  annum,  equal  to  some  ten  millions  of  itzi- 
boos,  a  numeration  difficult  to  convey  in  any  Japanese  terms, 
he  remarked,  with  a  sigh, '  that  it  was  very  different  with  them ; 
hitherto  they  had  nothing  but  expense !'  So,  it  was  obsened, 
it  must  ever  be  with  trade  in  its  infancy.  'Ah!'  he  replied, 
*but  already  every  thing  is  becoming  dearer;  if  this  be  the  re- 
sult of  foreign  trade  at  its  first  beginning,  what  will  it  be  in  its 
development  ?'  '  But,'  it  was  observed  in  reply, '  if  seme  things, 
in  consequence  of  a  foreign  demand,  become  dearer,  either 
money,  which  bought  them,  would  become  more  plentiful,  or 
other  things  (supplied  in  exchange  by  foreigners)  would  be 
cheaper,  so  that  there  Avould  be  compensation  somewhere.' 
Tliis  was  a  political  economy  which  Ja])anese  are  slow  to  be- 
lieve in,  and  I  was  fain  to  be  content  with  assuring  him  thatj; 
so  certain  was  the  tendency  of  all  trade  to  find  or  make  equiv- . 
alents,  that  no  commerce  between  different  countries  was  ever , 
permanent  unless  it  proved  mutually  beneficial,  and  so  he  mighty, 
be  assured  it  would  be  in  Japan.  ,,^ 

'With  every  desire,'  observed  the  senior  of  the  Ministers  of 
Foreign  Affairs  on  another  occasion,  arguing  for  a  limitation 
of  exports, '  with  every  desire  to  give  the  fullest  execution  to 
the  treaties,  to  meet  to  the  utmost  of  our  power  your  wishes 
and  those  of  the  other  Representatives,  we  still  hope  it  will  be 
borne  in  mind  that  we  are  but  a  small  country.  For  centuries 
we  have  been  isolated  from  the  rest  of  the  world,  have  pro- 
duced all  that  was  wanted  for  our  own  use,  but  no  more. 
Now,  suddenly,  we  have  entered  into  foreign  relations  with 
five  European  Powers ;  a  large  demand  has  sprung  up  for  cer- 
tain articles  of  home  consumption,  and  with  a  corresponding 
rise  in  prices !  Thus  we  see  ourselves  menaced  with  a  great 
national  calamity,  and  find  it  is  impossible  we  can  by  any  ef- 
fort meet  at  once  this  demand  by  increased  production.  What 
is  the  result  ?  Every  thing  is  becoming  dearer ;  our  people, 
who  have  no  superfluous  means — our  officers,  who  are  all  sala- 
ried at  very  low  rates,  will  soon  find  themselves  in  absolute  pov- 
erty, and  without  the  means  of  subsistence.  Where  is  this  to 
end?  We  know  very  well  that  in  time,  even  in  a  small  coun- 
try like  this,  an  increased  demand  will  act  as  a  stimulus  on  , 
production,  and  lead  to  an  increased  supply,  and,  it  may  be^.^ 
thus  increase  the  riches  of  the  nation — at  least  you  tell  us  thi|»,, 


266  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XlV. 

is  the  result  shown  by  universal  experience,  and  we  are  willing 
to  believe  it ;  but,  in  the  mean  time,  what  is  to  become  of  the 
people,  unable  to  subsist  on  diminished  means,  or,  what  amounts 
to  the  same  thing,  increased  dearness  of  every  thing  ?  These 
things  wound  us  to  the  heart.  We  do  not  wish  to  be  faithless 
to  treaties,  but  neither  can  we  calmly  look  on  and  see  our  coun- 
try menaced  with  a  general  impoverishment.  What  is  evi- 
dently wanted  is  time.  You  have  come  upon  us  with  these 
large  demands,  and  this  all-devouring  Western  trade  too  sud- 
denly, and  you  press  us  too  vehemently  and  too  far.  We  are 
urged  to  concede  every  thing,  remove  all  restrictions,  and,  in  a 
word,  to  accomplish  in  your  favor,  and  in  a  moment,  what,  after 
all,  should  be  the  work  of  a  century ;  and  this  is  an  impossi- 
biUty!  For  no  effort  or  abstinence  from  action  on  our  part 
can  suddenly  double  or  triple  the  supply  of  the  articles  you 
want  to  buy ;  and  that  which  alone  seems  capable  of  limiting 
your  demand  is  precisely  that  which  will  reduce  our  people  to 
poverty  and  despair  —  such  an  increase  of  price  as  will  leave 
the  inhabitants  of  this  country  no  means  of  purchasing  for  their 
own  use.  Already  raw  silk,  a  product  of  univei'sal  consump- 
tion ;  oil,  a  common  article  of  food,  and  a  necessity  to  our  peo- 
ple ;  with  vegetable  wax,  very  needful  also  for  common  con- 
sumption, are  so  greatly  enhanced  in  value  that  Japanese  be- 
gin to  find  it  difficult  to  buy  for  their  own  use.  It  would,  no 
doubt,  be  different  with  time,  or,  at  all  events,  the  evil  would 
be  much  mitigated,  for  it  is  difficult  for  us  to  understand  what, 
even  ultimately,  the  nation  has  to  gain  by  this  foreign  com- 
merce !  It  makes  the  articles  of  our  own  production,  which 
we  want,  dearer  to  the  many  for  the  enrichment  of  the  few,  and 
the  things  which  you  wish  to  sell  are  either  superfluities  we 
do  not  want  or  can  not  afford  to  buy.  We  say,  then,  time  is 
loanted  to  prevent  great  calamities  resulting,  which,  after  all, 
must  tend  to  defeat  your  object  of  extended  commerce,  even 
if  you  were  deaf  to  all  considerations  connected  with  our  wel- 
fare as  a  nation.  Let  some  restriction  be  put  upon  the  export 
of  these  articles  until  there  has  been  time  for  an  increased  pro- 
duction, and  a  supply  that  may  be  somewhat  more  propor- 
tioned to  the  demand.  In  that  way  trade  can  still  go  on  with- 
out undermining  all  the  elements  of  stability  and  peace,  and 
great  national  disasters  will  happily  be  averted.' 

Now  it  must  be  admitted,  allowing  for  some  little  coloring 
or  dressing  in  the  passage  of  the  ideas  through  European 
brains,  that  the  argixment  is  a  very  telling  one,  and  neither  de- 
void of  truth  nor  logic.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  prices, 
not  only  of  all  articles  for  which  we  have  created  a  new  de- 


Chap.  XIV.]  JAPANESE  ARGUMENT&  257 

mand,  had  largely  increased,  but  every  thing  had  become  dear- 
er. The  pressure  of  such  increase  must  bear  hardly  on  Japan- 
ese consumers,  who  are  many,  even  if  the  sellers,  who  are  few 
comparatively,  should  be  enriched.  Time  is  unquestionably 
required  for  any  largely  increased  production.  But,  once  grant 
the  prayer  of  these  patriotic  Ministers,  and  assent  to  their 
propositions,  how  would  it  work?  We  might  justly  answer: 
*  If  you  limit  or  prohibit  the  demand,  you  take  away  the  stim- 
ulus to  increased  production,  on  which  all  your  hopes  are 
founded.  You  lessen  it  in  the  first  case,  and  who  shall  devise 
a  gauge  by  which  the  foreigner  may  know  how  far  you  may 
apply  the  pressure  ?  And,  in  the  second  alternative — prohibi- 
tion, you  destroy  it  altogether.  Then,  again,  you  wish  to  ap- 
ply this  regulating  screw  (and  to  leave  it  in  the  hands  of  gov- 
ernment officials  wholly  beyond  our  supervision  or  control)  on 
the  only  articles  which  hitherto  have  afforded  any  elements  of 
an  export  trade.  That  is,  indeed,  to  render  nugatory  all  com- 
mercial treaties,  and  by  the  direct  action  of  the  government,  a 
contradiction  in  letter  and  spirit  to  the  whole  tenor  and  de- 
clared object  of  those  treaties.  How  can  a  government  sup- 
ply the  unerring  scales  of  graduation  which  trade,  free  and 
unrestricted,  naturally  furnishes  by  a  self-adjusting  process? 
Never  has  a  government  yet  succeeded  in  its  attempts  to  per- 
form this  function  in  a  way  to  be  really  beneficial  either  to 
trade  or  to  a  nation.  If  the  tendency  of  a  sudden  demand  or 
measure  of  consumption,  which  is  the  same  thing,  is  to  en- 
hance prices,  that  very  tendency  acts  as  a  check  to  the  de- 
mand.' My  American  colleague,  I  thought,  in  talking  over  the 
subject,  seemed  more  or  less  disposed  to  accept  a  proposition 
either  for  limitation  ov prohibition — quandm^me;  that  is,  as- 
suming the  result  to  be  the  destruction  of  all  trade.  If  trade 
and  the  weal  of  this  nation  were  really  incompatible,  as  the 
Ministers  allege  and  very  possibly  believe,  and  this  could  be 
satisfactorily  demonstrated,  it  is  quite  possible  I  also  might 
agree  with  them.  For  there  are — such  at  least  is  my  convic- 
tion— other  and  higher  objects  in  life,  whether  it  be  the  life  of 
individuals  or  of  nations,  than  Trade  and  the  interchange  of 
produce  between  different  people  and  countries.  Whatever 
material  or  moral  advantages  foreign  commerce  may  bring  in 
its  train,  to  set  against  the  evils  which  also  follow,  as  surely  as 
the  shadow  follows  the  substance,  they  can  never  be  received 
as  an  equivalent  for  the  general  impoverishment  of  a  nation. 
But  I  have  the  conviction  that  in  this,  as  all  other  things 
where  a  preponderating  good  is  universal,  despite  the  contin- 
gent evils  inseparable  from  it  and  every  thing  mundane,  the 


268  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  {Chap.  XIV. 

general  laws  which  give  the  universality,  render  any  result 
wholly  out  of  keeping  with  the  rest  impossible.  And,  there- 
fore, although  evil  and  not  good  may  seem  the  direct  or  im- 
mediate result,  it  is  neither  only  apparent,  partial,  or  very  tem- 
porary, and  trade  is  still  the  instrument  of  an  ultimate  good, 
and  one  only  thus  to  be  attained. 

But  it  is  ill  arguing  against  foregone  conclusions  and  a  tra- 
ditional policy.  In  a  work  of  Titsingh,  I  came  a  short  time 
afterward  upon  an  exposition  of  Japanese  views  on  matters  of 
political  economy,  still  existing  and  in  full  force,  as  I  have  had 
occasion  to  test  in  my  unavailing  efforts  to  induce  them  to 
profit  by  modern  science  for  the  better  working  of  their  coal 
mines — a  vast  source  of  wealth  to  them  and  benefit  to  us,  could 
they  be  moved.  '  Ancient  writers,'  says  our  Japanese  author, 
'  compared  the  metals  to  the  bones  of  the  human  body,  and 
the  contributions  to  the  blood,  the  fiesh,  the  hair  of  the  skin, 
which  are  continually  renewed — a  process  that  never  takes 
place  with  the  metals.'  And  he  goes  on  to  trace  the  ruin  and 
impoverishment  of  China  to  the  improvident  working  of  these 
mines,  and  the  prodigious  export  of  the  metals  into  Tartary 
and  Mongolia.  He  then  draws  the  moral,  that  if  they  contin- 
ued to  work  their  gold,  and  silver,  and  copper  mines  as  they 
had  heretofore  done — since  the  metals,  like  the  bones,  once  taken 
from  the  earth,  were  never  reproduced — they  would  soon  be 
exhausted ;  and  unless  the  export  of  gold  and  silver  to  foreign 
countries  were  stopped — moi*e  considerable,  he  believed,  than 
all  which  had  been  transported  from  China  to  Tartary,  and  es- 
timated at  about  150,000  cobangs  annually  (about  as  many 
sovereigns,  which  does  not  give  a  very  high  idea  of  the  quan- 
tity in  the  country) — he  augured  nothing  but  ruin  and  penury. 

He  goes  on  to  say  that  '  Anciently  they  knew  neither  gold 
nor  silver  in  Japan,  and  then  they  wanted  for  nothing,  and  the 
people  were  good  and  virtuous.  Since  then  metals  have  been 
discovered,  the  heart  of  man  has  been  perverted  from  day  to 
day,  and  yet,  with  the  exception  of  medicines,  we  could  very 
well  dispense  with  all  that  comes  from  without.  The  textile 
stuffs,  and  all  the  foreign  articles,  are  of  no  real  utility  to  us ; 
we  did  not  even  know  them  in  former  times.'  And  having 
thus  satisfactorily  shown  that  to  the  love  or  greed  of  gold  had 
to  be  traced  all  evil  in  the  breast  of  man,  and  to  its  export  the 
impoverishment  of  the  country,  he  farther  adds,  'All  the  gold, 
and  silver,  and  copper  that  has  been  extracted  from  the 
mines,  under  the  reign  of  Gongin*  and  since  his  reign,  have 

■     *  Gongin  Sama,  the  successor  of  Taiko  Sama,  and  the  founder  of  the  pres- 
<ent  dynasty  of  Tycoons,  in  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century. 


Cii*p.  XIV.]  POLICY  OF  THE  JAPANESE.  259 

been  dissipated,  and,  what  is  more  lamentable,  for  things  which 
were  only  supei-Huities,  and  might  easily  have  been  dispensed 
with.  If  we  thus  exhaust  all  our  treasures,  on  what  shall  we 
live?'  He  forgets  that  he  had  declared  the  page  before  they 
wanted  for  nothing,  the  earth  was  fertile,  and  the  people  were 
good  and  virtuous,  and  not  only  when  there  was  no  gold  or 
silver,  but  because  there  was  none.  He  concludes  with  a  "sort 
of  benediction  :  'May  we  all  reflect  on  what  I  have  said,  and 
the  riches  of  Japan  will  last  as  long  as  the  heavens  and  the 
earth.' 

This,  as  I  have  had  practical  experience,  is  really  the  ruling 
policy  of  the  Japanese  at  this  day.  They  regard  all  we  bring 
as  superfluities,  the  payment  of  which,  if  in  gold  and  silver,  by 
so  much  impoverishes  them,  and  if  in  produce,  is  likely  to  raise 
the  prices  on  the  natives,  and  equally  lead  to  distress  and  ])ov- 
erty ;  and,  lastly,  that  it  is  a  crime  against  posterity,  and  an 
improvidence  the  most  repreliensible,  to  go  on  exhausting  the 
mineral  resources  of  the  country  without  regard  to  any  but 
the  present  generation. 

So  they  are  de;if  to  all  suggestions  for  increasing  the  quan- 
lity,  or  improving  the  quality  of  their  coal  by  better  methods, 
and  the  aid  of  steam  machinery ;  the  first,  because  they  are 
afraid  of  exhausting  it,  and  do  not,  in  truth,  care  to  supply  for- 
eign nations  from  their  own  stores ;  and  the  second,  because  it 
would  throw  labor  out  of  employment.  Hence,  too,  they  have 
refused  to  Avork  certain  lead  mines  at  Hakodadi,  rich  in  silver 
alloy.    Perhaps  the  Russians,  who  seem  disposed  to  make  that 

Sort  a  sort  of  head-quarters,  and  to  exei'cise  a  considerable  in- 
uence  over  the  ruling  powers,  may  succeed,  if  this  were  their 
interest,  in  persuading  them  to  work  it.*  ,ia 

,/ 
*  The  Japanese  Government  apparently  had  made  up  their  minds,  at  last, 
to  seek  assistance  in  the  working  of  their  mines  from  the  science  of  the 
West;  and,  accordingly,  just  before  my  departure,  two  Americans,  said  to 
be  good  geologists,  with  practical  knowledge  of  mining,  had  arrived,  to  be 
employed  by  the  Japanese  Government.  Arrangements  for  their  services 
appeared  to  have  been  entered  into  through  Mr.  Harris,  the  resident  Minis^ 
ter  of  the^Uoit^  States,  and  on  a  liberal  scale.  I  have  not  yet  heard  of  an; 
result.    ),•(•;,,  -/• 

r  _. 

it 

d 


260  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XV, 


CHAPTER  XV. 

A  Country  Walk. — Agriculture,  Trees,  and  Flora  of  Japan. — Peasant  Life 
and  Prison  Life. — Natural  History. — Japanese  Lacker-ware  and  Skillful 
Workmanship. — Monster  Bazar. 

Let  us  leave  Japanese  politics  and  the  whole  class  of  sub- 
jects official — wearisome  and  monotonous  withal  (save  when 
broken  by  some  deed  of  atrocity  or  bloodshed),  and  take  a 
walk  in  the  fresh  morning  air  to  Yokohama.  The  sun  is  up, 
the  sky  clear  and  bright,  and  the  change  from  Japanese  offi- 
cials and  chicanery,  with  absurd  alarms,  and  still  more  prepos- 
terous plans  for  meeting  the  supposed  dangers  of  natural  im- 
poverishment, famine,  and  ruin  (declared,  as  we  have  seen,  to 
be  the  only  probable  result  of  foreign  trade),  to  Japanese 
scenery,  is  refreshing,  both  to  body  and  mind.  The  shady 
roads  and  country  lanes  bring  us  in  communion  only  with  Na- 
ture, which  here,  as  elsewhere,  is  divine — here  more  than  in 
many  favored  lands  even,  whatever  the  spirit  of  man  may  be ! 
It  is  indeed  worthy  of  all  admiration,  while  the  simple  manners 
and  kindly  nature  of  the  people  are  in  pleasant  contrast  with 
the  juggling  and  duplicity  of  their  rulers, 

A  walk  to  Yokahama,  the  present  site  of  what  foreign  trade 
there  is,  at  the  port  of  Kanagawa,  through  cultivated  fields 
and  copse-fringed  lanes,  to  end  with  a  morning's  shopping  in 
the  huge  bazar  (which  the  whole  extemporized  settlement  of 
shops  and  warehouses  has  become),  is  as  pleasant  a  change  as 
well  can  be.  It  opens  the  book  of  Japanese  life  at  one  of  the 
most  amusing  and  least  objectionable  chapters.  Kanagawa, 
the  residence  of  the  official  section  of  the  little  foreign  com- 
munity at  the  port,  is  situated  on  the  northern  edge  of  a  bight 
of  the  great  Bay  of  Yeddo.  Following  the  shore  with  a  grace- 
ful curve,  the  town  stretches,  with  houses  and  trees  intermin- 
gled, for  some  two  miles,  with  a  near  background  of  pictur- 
esque hills,  wooded  and  broken  into  every  variety  of  form.  It 
was  on  the  opposite  or  southern  point  of  this  lesser  bay,  as  has 
been  explained,  that  the  Japanese  bethought  themselves  of  in- 
venting a  settlement  for  foreigners.  "Well  isolated  from  all  the 
surrounding  hamlets,  and  far  removed  from  the  great  trunk 
road  which  leads  to  the  capital,  and  the  busy  town  of  Kanaga- 
wa itself — the  resort  of  all  travelers  on  their  journeys  to  and 
from  the  capital,  as  I  have  already  described — it  realized  all  the 


Chap.  XV.] 


A  COUNTRY  WALK. 


2C1 


conditions  a  Japanese  could  conceive  desirable  for  the  seclu- 
sion and  packing  away  of  their  little-desired  guests,  as  ihey 
would  pack  artillery  or  pen  up  cattle,  to  be  accessible  for  them- 
selves, but  unapproachable  to  all  else  without  permission. 
An  extemporized  road  across  some  salt  marshes  or  lagoo:  s 
bridges  the  distance  from  Kanagawa,  and  farther  answers  the 
purpose  of  making  the  route  deviate  earlier  from  the  great 
thoroughfare  for  Japanese.  It  gives  it,  moreover,  an  exclusive 
character,  so  that  no  one  could  have  any  pretext  for  turning 
into  it  other  than  that  of  intercourse  with  the  ^Tbjin  baba,''  or 
trading  foreigners.  To  make  it  necessary  to  produce  a  license 
for  this,  completed  the  net  of  isolation.  It  was  to  this  happily 
planned  and  ingeniously  executed  design  that  the  Diplomatic 
Agents  of  Great  Britain  and  America  saw  sundry  grave  objec- 
tions, and  refused  to  accept  the  improvised  settlement,  with 
all  its  properties  of  quays,  jetties,  and  custom-house,  roads  and 
bridges  over  salt  lagoons  included — refused  to  take  them  over 
at  any  price,  or  accept  them  even  as  a  gift.  But  there  the 
settlement  remains,  and  no  effort  of  Foreign  Representatives 
could  undo  the  mischief  of  a  first  wrong  step.  Insidiously  de- 
signed, it  has  been  too  readily  backed  by  the  first  comers,  and 
too  steadily  persisted  in  by  the  native  authorities  for  any  oth- 
er result. 

But  we  are  taking  a  path  through  the  fields  that  we  may 
turn  out  of  the  road  a  while.  Some  of  the  paddy  (rice)  is  still 
uncut,  though  it  has  long  been  ripe,  and  this  is  the  end  of  No- 
vember.   The  sun  in  its  continued  power,  and  the  dry  season, 


CARDING   MACBtNE   FOB   SBPARA-TINO  THB   QRADT, 


262 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  XV. 


are  apparently  sufficient  guarantees  to  the  farmer  that  it  will 
not  be  spoiled ;  and,  ever  thrifty,  they  provide  no  more  store- 
room than  is  absolutely  necessary.  The  corn  itself  they  often 
either  beat  out  on  the  roadside  or  pathway,  or  by  tire,  on  the 
place  where  it  is  cut,  separate  the  heads,  and  turn  the  straw  to 
manure.  Here  is  some  suspended  across  a  bamboo  pole  along 
the  edge  of  the  field,  heads  down,  to  dry — a  very  simple,  inex- 
pensive, and,  I  should  fancy,  effective  mode  of  drying.  At  oth- 
er times  they  have  a  simple  machine  with  ii'on  teeth,  by  which 
the  women  separate  the  grain  as  they  would  card  wool.  The 
flail  is  also  in  use,  as  the  following  sketch  shows.    Neither 


HOW   THEY    SEPARATE    THE    GEAIN. 


cold,  nor  rain,  nor  fogs  have  any  terrors  here  to  the  cultivator 
during  the  months  of  October  and  November,  for  it  is  like  an- 
other summer,  without  its  scorching  heat  or  pestilent  musqui- 
toes.  They  are,  in  reality,  among  the  pleasantest  and  most 
genial  of  the  twelve.  Yet  here  and  there  a  little  hoar-frost  i8 
on  the  tufts  of  grass,  and  the  early  morning  air  is  keen.  They 
have  already  got  their  wheat-seed  into  the  ground  on  the  high- 
er land,  and  it  is  springing  up  in  regular  lines,  not  broadcast, 
but  drilled.  And  what  a  soil  it  is !  a  rich,  dark,  friable  earth, 
nearly  black — light  to  handle,  and  without  a  stone  or  a  pebble 
to  be  seen,  which  the  lightest  wooden  plow,  just  tipped  with 
iron,  turns  up  with  ease.  This  is  two  or  three  feet  deep,  bank- 
ed up  from  the  paths ;  a  crop  of  turnip-radish  is  coming  up, 
which  grows  here  between  one  and  two  feet  in  length,  perfect- 
ly white,  and  nearly  as  tasteless.  Some  of  the  cotton-fields 
Still  have  the  sticks  standing,  with  a  few  pods  here  and  there 


Chap.XV.J  a  country  WALK.— PLOWING. 


263 


JAPANESE   PLOWING. 


attached.  Potatoes,  too,  are  cultivated,  and  seem  to  have  been 
known  for  centuries  ;  whether  indigenous  or  not  it  is  difficult 
to  ascertain,  but  as  they  are  called  by  a  Dutch  name,  it  may 
be  to  them  they  are  indebted  for  their  introduction.  They 
thrive  well,  though  always  small,  and  are  sold  at  two  itziboos 
the  picul,  or  three  shillings  the  sack  of  133  lbs.,  much  as  at 

Hakodadi.  Here  is  a  rich  variety 
of  crops,  fit  for  either  zone,  tropic 
or  temperate ;  cotton,  rice,  pota- 
toes, turnips,  and  wheat,  maize, 
buckwheat,  and  millet,  seem  in 
strange  juxtaposition ;  however, 
liore  they  are,  and  flourishing. 

And  now  we  turn  from  the 
open  fields,  the  last  one  showing 
the  regular  treading  down  of  bare 
feet,  to  keep  the  seed  from  being 
worked  out,  giving  equal  evidence 
of  the  care  of  the  husbandman 
HOW  THST  COVER  THE  SEED,     and  the  cheapness  of  labor.    Yet 


264  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XV. 

they  are  always  economizing  it,  cheap  and  plentiful  as  it  may 
be,  and  instead  of  the  feet  they  sometimes  use  a  simple  roller, 
made  out  of  a  transverse  section  of  a  tree.  And  when  they 
wish  to  manure  a  field,  they  make  a  tree  do  the  duty  of  one 
man,  and  very  much  assist  and  economize  the  labor  of  the  other 
by  passing  a  rope  through  the  handle  of  the  pail  close  to  the 
depot  of  the  manure,  one  end  of  which  is  secured  to  the  tree, 
and  the  other  is  held  by  the  laborer  to  enable  him  to  swing  the 
contents  over  a  wide  area.  In  other  cases  he  is  supplied  with 
a  large  ladle,  at  the  end  of  a  ten-feet  handle,  which  gives  an 
equally  wide  sweep,  and  with  little  labor. 

We  now  gain  a  sliady  lane  through  which  the  sun's  rays 
pierce  only  at  intervals.  On  the  banks  above,  the  pine,  the 
evergreen  oak,  a  noble  tree,  with  leaves  of  a  rich  dark  color, 
something  like  the  laurel,  the  light  bamboo — the  Cryptomeria 
Japonica — (all  except  the  bamboo,  which  is  a  grass,  though 
growing  thirty  or  forty  feet  high),  trees  of  great  size  and  value 
as  timber.  The  beautiful  maple,  too,  with  its  star-like  leaves 
and  ever-graceful  foliage,  can  not  be  passed  by  without  a  glance 
of  admiration,  and  Japan  can  boast  of  numerous  varieties.  At 
this  season  its  leaves  are  of  the  brightest  scarlet  hue,  but  no 
pen  can  convey  an  adequate  idea  of  the  richness  and  variety 
of  the  autumnal  tints.  The  brightest  crimson  and  scarlet  al- 
ternate with  a  golden  yellow,  and  the  deeper  colors,  brown 
and  green,  of  the  evergreens.  The  '  sear  and  yellow  leaf  has 
a  beauty  of  its  own  here,  which  leaves  little  room  for  regret 
that  the  glowing  hues  of  summer  are  wanting.  Yet  winter  is 
coming,  one  sees ;  every  now  and  then  the  wind  sends  a  whirl 
of  dried  leaves  along  the  road,  and  some  of  the  trees  are  look- 
ing all  the  barer  in  consequence. 

The  tall,  well-kept  hedges  and  fences  are  still  thickly  cover- 
ed, cut  and  trimmed  in  the  Dutch  manner  of  gardening  (a 
fashion  which  there  is  little  doubt,  I  think,  was  introduced  into 
Europe  from  Japan),  and  how  admirably  they  are  planted  and 
trimmed !  Nowhere  out  of  England  can  such  hedges  be  seen, 
and  not  in  the  British  Isles  can  be  found  such  variety.  Here 
is  a  low  hedge,  or  border  rather,  made  of  the  tea-plant,  two  or 
three  bushes  deep,  and  growing  about  three  feet  high,  not  un- 
like the  ordinary  flowering  camellia,  of  which  it  is  a  species. 
Now  we  have  come  to  an  inclosure  fenced  in  with  nectarines, 
and  there  is  a  hedge  of  pomegranate.  Inside  a  tall  orange- 
tree  is  laden  with  its  golden  fruit ;  and,  stranger  still,  a  cherry- 
tree  in  full  blossom  this  25th  day  of  November !  Oh  happy 
land  and  pleasant  country !  that  is,  when  no  Daimios  or  ofii- 
cials  intrude  their  presence,  which  mars  all.     But  I  said  I 


Chap.  XV.] 


MANURING  PROCESSES. 


26i 


MAM  KlNci    l-KUChMS. 


M 


266  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XV. 

would  not  think  of  politics.  Let  us  return  to  the  hedgerows 
and  their  inexhaustible  variety.  Now  it  is  a  fine,  tall,  close- 
twisted  fence  of  Ci-yptomeria,  while  over  that  porch  of  thatch 
the  Wistaria  (or  Ghjcinm  ciaensis,  as  it  has  also  been  called) 
spreads,  with  insatiable  desire,  its  far-reaching  arms,  to  be  cov- 
ered in  spring  with  glorious  clusters  of  purple  flowers.*  Lit- 
tle hamlets  and  farmers'  homesteads  are  dotted  about  in  a  sort 
of  picturesque  confusion,  generally  nestled  in  the  valleys  and 
under  the  hill-sides  amidst  a  clump  of  trees,  where  the  Crypto- 
meria,  the  bamboo,  and  the  palm  all  tend  to  give  an  Eastern 
character  to  dwellings  otherwise  claiming  some  resemblance 
to  Swiss  chalets.  What  architecture  there  is,  however,  has  no 
originality,  and  is,  in  fact,  only  a  slight  modification  of  the  Chi- 
nese style  of  building,  with  wooden  frames.  Their  temples, 
gateways,  and  larger  houses  are  eminently  Chinese,  only  in 
better  style,  and  infinitely  better  kept.  The  country  can  never 
look  wintry  here,  unless  covered  with  snow  (which  it  is  some- 
times after  Christmas),  for  its  trees  can  never  be  wholly  strip- 
ped of  foliage,  there  is  such  a  preponderance  of  evergreens. 

It  seems  the  slack  time  of  the  year  for  laborers  in  the  field ; 
few  are  at  work.  Their  simple  device  for  keeping  off  the  birds 
— a  pole  in  the  centre,  from  which  cords  are  stretched  to  the 
edges  at  wide  intervals — show  that  seed  is  in  the  ground ;  and 
the  farmer  seems  to  be  contemplating,  with  great  satisfaction, 
the  success  of  his  device.  Certainly  it  has  great  simplicity  of 
design  and  economy  in  its  application  to  recommend  it,  and  I 
have  such  faith  in  the  practical  spirit  and  intelligence  of  the 
Japanese,  that  it  is  enough  for  me  to  see  the  general  adoption 
of  any  plan  to  feel  certain  of  its  well  answering  the  end  pro- 
posed. I  give  a  fac-simile  drawing,  therefore,  of  the  original, 
and,  judging  by  the  contented  air  of  my  Japanese  farmer,  I 
should  recommend  it,  on  both  grounds,  to  the  agriculturist's 
notice.  Here  and  there,  remnants  of  the  paddy  crop  are  being 
cut  with  a  primitive-looking  sickle.  Now  and  then  one  meets, 
with  regret,  a  line  of  coolies  carrying  the  manure-pails  to  the 
ground,  or,  worse  still,  distributing  it  in  the  manner  already 
illustrated.  But  most  of  the  seed  of  the  spring  crops  is  already 
in,  I  fancy,  and  the  ground  is  pretty  well  cleared  of  all  the 
others ;  what  little  is  doing  is  the  work  of  women  and  chil- 
dren, and  they  are  the  chief  laborers  at  this  season. 

The  Japanese  authorities  have  endeavored  to  persuade  for- 
eign officials  that  wages  are  high  and  produce  dear.  Such  can 
hardly  be  the  case.    The  evidence  of  plenty,  or  a  sufficiency  at 

♦  The  yellow  flower,  of  which  rare  specimens  are  to  be  seen  in  China,  I 
have  never  observed  in  Japan. 


Chap.  XV.]        A  COUNTUY  WALK.— PEASANTRY.  267 


4vr  M 


MODK   OF   PaOTECTIMa   LAND  FBOM  BIBOS. 

least,  every  where  meets  the  eye ;  cottages  and  farm-houses 
are  rarely  seen  out  of  repair — in  pleasant  contrast  to  China, 
where  every  thing  is  going  to  decay — public  buildings  and  pri- 
vate dwellings  alike,  but  more  especially  the  former.  The  men 
and  women,  now  they  take  to  their  clothing,  are  well  and  com- 
fortably clad,  even  the  children,  though  there  are  two  or  three 
rejoicing  in  Nature's  garb,  having  just  rushed  out  of  a  vapor- 
bath,  and,  Russian-like,  facing  the  cold  with  impunity.  In  pass- 
ing the  door  may  be  seen  a  black-mouthed  matron,  the  moth- 
er, no  doubt,  of  all  these  disreputable-looking  little  Cupids  and 
Psyches  (without  their  wings),  in  precisely  the  same  garb,  nuis- 
ing  the  baby  as  she  looks  unconcernedly  round  at  the  tqji/is. 
One  would  think  they  must  needs  be  a  cleanly  people,  and 
that  is  a  great  virtue,  whatever  we  may  say  or  think  of  their 
free  and  easy  mode  of  arriving  at  the  result.  There  is  no  sign 
of  starvation  or  penury  in  the  midst  of  the  population,  if  little 
room  for  the  indulgence  of  luxury  or  the  display  of  wealth. 
Their  habits  of  life  are  evidently  simple  in  the  highest  degree. 
A  bare  matted  room,  not  over  large,  but  generally  clean ;  a 
few  shelves  or  a  low  etag&re  of  lacker  let  into  some  recess;  a 
few  lacker  cups  and  saucers,  or  porcelain,  with  as  many  trays 


268 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  XV. 


on  stands — behold  the  whole  furniture  of  a  well-furnished  house, 
from  the  Daimio,  whose  revenue  is  estimated  at  a  million  meas- 
m*es  of  rice,  to  the  little  shopkeeper  or  peasant  who  lives  from 
hand  to  mouth.  This  is  all  the  richest  have,  and  more  than 
the  poorest  w^•lnt.  In  the  kitchen  a  few  buckets,  two  or  three 
copper  or  iron  pans,  and  a  movable  stove  or  two,  with  a  large 
pan  for  the  daily  rice  and  hot  water,  supply  all  the  means  of 
cooking.  Feather  and  bamboo  brooms,  with  plenty  of  water 
and  air,  afford  the  means  of  cleanliness.  In  the  inner  rooms, 
behind  those  sliding  panels,  are  a  few  cotton-stuffed  wrappers, 
and  they  are  bed  and  blanket,  while  a  lacker  or  wooden  pillow 
completes  the  couch. 

There  is  something  to  admire  in  this  Spartan  simplicity  of 

habits,  which  seems  to  extend 
through  all  their  life,  and  they 
pride  themselves  upon  it.  Fish 
and  rice  are  the  chief  articles  of 
food,  with  tea  and  saki  for  bev- 
erages. The  peasant,  the  labor 
of  the  day  over,  can  always  look 
forward  to  the  luxury  of  a  hot 
bath,  and  a  still  more  luxurious 
shampooing,  if  not  by  his  barber 
or  the  blind  professors  of  the  art, 
who  go  about  all  the  evening, 
with  a  whistle  for  their  cry,  seek- 
ing customers,  he  can  always 
make  sure  of  it  by  his  wife's  aid. 
Certainly  so  much  austerity, 
and  such  universal  absence  of  lux- 
ury, must  go  far  to  enable  all  to 
live  upon  little,  preserve  to  each 
his  independence  of  action,  and, 
one  would  think,  spare  many 
heartburnings  in  vain  effort  to  outvie  each  other  in  ostenta- 
tious entertainments  and  equipages — a  rivalry  which,  in  other 
countries,  boasting  of  superior  wisdom  and  civilization,  is  the 
source  of  much  more  misery  than  happiness  to  the  envied  own- 
ers, and  often  leads  to  ruin.  Here,  if  there  be  any  such  rivalry, 
I  believe  it  is  confined  to  the  richer  Daimios,  and  consists,  al- 
most exclusively,  in  the  number  of  their  retainers,  who  are  fed 
and  kept  in  idleness.  The  poorer  classes  seem  perfectly  to  an- 
swer the  description  of  a  happy  peasant-life,  drawn  from  anoth- 
er race,  who 

Lead  a  careless  life, 
With  naught  to  wish  and  naught  to  spare, 


THE   peasant's   LUXURY. 


Chap.  3tV.  j  JAPAl^ESE  PRISON.  269 

As  I  wandered  on  the  pleasant  road  with  this  train  of 
thought,  which  tlie  picture  before  me  of  agricultural  life  and 
Arcadian  simplicity  suggested,  fully  occupying  me,  I  had  for- 
gotten a  special  object  I  had  in  view  on  starting.  This  neces- 
sitated a  deviation  out  of  the  beaten  track,  about  midway  be- 
tween Kanagawa  and  Yokohama ;  so  I  turned  on  my  steps,  the 
same  thoughts  still  pursuing  me,  however,  as  the  lines  already 
quoted,  so  descriptive  of  the  people,  came  back  to  my  mind. 
What  condition  can  be  happier?  Wealth  brings  troubles, 
cares,  temptations.  '  Quien  tien  criados  Hen  cuidados^  says 
the  Spanish  proverb.  So  true  it  is,  that  much  to  spare  seems 
ever  to  draw  after  it,  as  an  inseparable  condition,  much  to  be 
anxious  about.  Care  follows  like  a  shadow ;  and  if,  like  other 
shadows,  it  only  proves  the  substance,  unlike  a  mere  shadow, 
it  becomes  a  heavy  burden.  Those  who  have  little,  without  a 
wish  for  more,  are  certainly,  therefore,  among  the  happiest  of 
mankind,  as  far  as  worldly  conditions  are  concerned.  Here  I 
came  to  a  full  stop,  not  that  the  argument  seemed  to  me  by 
any  means  exhausted ;  it  was  a  natural  obstacle  that  brought 
me  suddenly  up,  an  '  institution'  of  this  Arcadian  country,  and 
much  too  real  and  substantial,  in  the  form  it  presented,  to  be 
overlooked.  It  was  not  so  pleasant  a  sight  as  smiling  faces  of 
happy  peasants,  and  green  fields  with  wild-fowl  flying  across  by 
hundreds,  but  perhaps  it  was  more  instructive.  We  are  on 
the  rising  ground,  and  below  lies  the  valley,  a  pretty  retired 
and  rural -looking  spot  as  heart  can  desire  or  eye  can  look 
upon !  All  is  peaceful  and  quiet ;  every  field  is  in  full  culti- 
vation, and  here  and  there  a  green  hedgerow,  or  a  clump  of 
noble  evergreens,  mark  the  line  of  a  country  lane.  There  are 
no  hamlets  or  cottages  visible,  however,  and  half  unconsciously 
you  feel,  even  as  you  are  admiring,  that  there  is  an  air  of  sol- 
itude and  isolation  about  the  whole  scene  which  oppresses, 
you  can  hardly  explain  why,  until  your  eye  rests  on  a  strong 
palisaded  building,  which  stands  in  the  midst  of  all,  a  little  to 
the  left,  and  on  a  highly  elevated  platform.  A  stone -faced 
moat  surrounds  it,  and  already,  as  you  look  down  on  its  court- 
yards and  long  low  line  of  roofs,  you  feel  by  a  kind  of  instinct 
that  the  smiling  valley  has  in  its  heart  but  one  occupant,  and 
that  a  dismal  one!  It  is  the  prison  of  the  district,  the  twin 
brother  to  the  foreign  settlement  at  Yokohama,  conceived  by 
the  same  Government,  born  of  the  same  parents  in  the  same 
hour,  and  placed  under  the  same  political  guardianship.  Let 
us  go  in  and  see  what  it  contains,  and  how  they  manage  these 
things  in  Japan,  which,  for  all  it  seems  so  Arcadian,  does  not, 
alas!  seem  exempt  from  the  maladies  common  to  the  social 
Btate  in  other  lands. 


270  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XV' 

The  outer  gate  is  open,  and,  turning  round  an  angle,  we  come 
upon  the  Janitor's  lodge — a  sort  of  guard-house.  Three  or  four 
officials  are  lounging  about,  and  do  not  seem  much  oppressed 
with  business,  and  still  less  with  care.  We  have  a  pass,  and 
no  difficulty  is  made,  therefore,  in  showing  the  interior — none, 
at  least,  beyond  the  delay  caused  by  the  necessity  of  hunting 
amidst  a  heap  of  keys  and  labels,  the  first  of  the  oddest  shape, 
and  the  last  of  an  incommensurate  size,  on  which  the  places 
they  open  are  written.  This  over,  the  gate  of  a  narrow  court- 
yard is  first  opened,  and  then  the  inner  door  of  a  large  room. 
It  is  a  room  of  twelve  mats,  for  so  they  measure  houses  and 
streets  alike — open  bars  all  round,  and  with  an  unpleasant  re- 
semblance to  a  wild  beast's  cage.  This  is  a  division  appropri- 
ated to  foreign  prisoners,  furnished  chiefly  by  sailors,  a  class 
ever  prolific  in  riot  and  drunkenness  in  a  foreign  port  —  the 
more  the  pity !  Happily,  I  was  going  to  say ;  but  a  doubt  enters 
into  my  mind  as  to  the  appropriateness  of  the  term ;  happily  or 
unhappily,  then,  as  the  case  may  be,  there  were  no  inmates. 
But,  on  entering,  there  was  no  lack  of  evidence  of  former  occu- 
pants. A  compass  elaborately  painted  on  the  wainscot  record- 
ed how  one  'Christian  Louis'  had  whiled  away  the  tedious 
hours.  A  checker-board  below  answered  for  another;  while 
a  third  had  made  a  frank  confession,  for  the  benefit  of  his  suc- 
cessors, that  saki  had  brought  him  there,  and  '  saki  would  be 
his  ruin ;'  with  which  comfortable  conviction  he  seems  to  have 
solaced  himself,  for,  with  great  complacency,  he  had  signed 
his  name  in  full.  This  habit  of  scoring  names  wherever  space 
for  sprawling  letters  can  be  found — on  works  of  art  or  Nature's 
monuments  of  granite ;  on  prison  cells  and  palace  walls  ;  or,  in 
default  of  other  medium,  on  barks  of  trees  and  garden  seats — is 
one  of  the  least  intelligible  of  the  many  forms  of  folly  which 
idleness  or  a  craving  for  notoriety  seems  to  take  in  every  age. 
It  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  universal  and  ancient.  On  the 
rocks  of  Syria,  as  in  the  ruins  of  Pompeii,  evidences  abound 
proving  its  existence  from  the  time  of  the  Pharaohs !  Is  it  in- 
stinctive desire  for  immortality  which  prompts  so  many  Browns 
and  Robinsons  of  every  race.  Heathen  and  Christian,  to  take  so 
much  trouble  and  pains  to  deface  monuments  with  their  initials 
and  names  at  length,  and  thus  hand  down  to  posterity  the  un- 
important fact  of  their  obscure  existence  at  a  given  date  and 
place  ?  Yet  what  can  it  benefit  them^  that  in  another  century 
their  ignoble  names  should  be  read  and  laughed  at,  or  anathe- 
matized by  others  following  in  their  footsteps?  I  confess  I 
never  could  form  even  a  plausible  explanation  of  the  phenom- 
enon }  but  at  least  a  common  felon's  cell  might  escape  from 


Chap.  XV.]  JAPANESE  PRISON.  271 

such  frantic  efforts  to  achieve  immortality !  Tliere  is  a  laurel- 
tree  shown  in  the  gardens  of  the  Isola  Bella,  on  the  Lago  Maggi- 
ore,  with  the  half-effaced  letters  which  once  formed  the  word 
''Battaglia^  carved — so  guide-books  and  guides  aver — by  Na- 
poleon himself  shortly  before  the  battle  of  Marengo.  That  his 
thoughts  should  be  of  battles  at  that  hour,  as  in  his  last,  can 
easily  be  understood ;  but  what  pleasure  could  Ae,  whose  des- 
tiny it  was  to  carve  out  empires,  have  found  in  cutting  letters 
on  the  bark  of  a  tree,  in  that  pleasant  garden  of  Borromco  ? 
We  must  continue  our  inspection  of  the  prison.  To  the  right 
is  a  second  cell  or  closet  with  a  tub  of  water.  The  Japanese, 
true  to  their  national  habits,  afford  a  daily  bath  to  every  in- 
mate, and  twice  a  day  in  the  summer. 

The  prison  is  divided  into  two  ranges,  and  on  the  opposite 
side  is  a  large  square  room  or  cage  into  which  some  twenty 
prisoners  might  be  put.  It  appears  the  solitary  system  has 
not  yet  penetrated  into  Japan  ;  and  as  no  distinction  of  sex  ap- 
pears to  be  considered  material,  among  the  lower  orders  at  all 
events,  the  arrangements  for  the  safe  custody  of  the  inmates 
admits  of  little  farther  simplification.  In  this  room  we  found 
five  or  six  suflSciently  miserable-looking  individuals — all  men, 
however — unshorn  and  unshaven,  as  prisoners  usually  are,  ex- 
cept in  the  palace-prisons  of  England.  There  was  no  furni- 
ture, of  course ;  how  should  there  be,  indeed,  when  the  great- 
est Daimio  holds  a  table  an  encumbrance,  a  chair  an  abomina- 
tion, and  a  bed  altogether  insufferable,  and  only  fit  for  a  For- 
eigner ! 

One  is  glad  to  get  out  and  breathe  a  purer  and  fresher  air. 
A  prison,  a  mad-house,  and  a  hospital  are  the  three  saddest 
spectacles  any  where  to  be  seen.  They  bring  us  face  to  face 
with  suffering  humanity  in  many  of  its  most  repulsive  forms ; 
and  a  Japanese  prison,  I  found,  was  no  exception.  The  other 
two,  so  far  as  I  can  learn,  do  not  exist — neither  mad-house  nor 
hospital.  With  a  brisk  walk  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour  across 
the  lagoon  in  the  fresh  morning  air,  with  the  sunlit  bay  on  the 
left,  and  the  distant  hills  of  the  opposite  shore,  half  lost  in  aeri- 
al tints  of  gray  and  purple,  to  gladden  the  eye,  the  dismal  one- 
house  valley  is  soon  forgotten.  Storks  are  vainly  fishing  for 
eels,  worms,  and  other  delicacies,  and  devouring  them  when 
found  with  the  greatest  equanimity,  despite  the  contortions  of 
the  victim — much  as  the  clever  and  rapacious  devour  their  vic- 
tims in  the  world.  Or,  as  the  French  poet  has  it, 
Les  fons  sont  dcs  festins 
Et  les  sages  les  mangcnt ! 

I  have  already  remarked  on  the  semi- worship  of  the  stork  by 


272 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  XV. 


the  Japanese.  They  are  the  favorite  objects  of  artistic  skill  in 
every  form  of  onianieutation — in  porcelain  and  lacker,  tapes- 
try and  embroidery — and  nothing  can  be  more  artistic  than 
the  way  in  wliich  they  are  treated  in  all  these  various  works, 
as  the  following  wood-cut  may  show. 


Beyond,  on  the  surface  of  the  pond,  are  myriads  of  wild- 
fowl, so  conscious  of  their  immunity  from  gun  and  dog,  under 
imperial  decree,  that  they  allow  you  to  approach  within  a  few 
yards — a  most  aggravating  sight  to  a  sportsman  ;  but  such  is 
the  law,  and  the  birds  evidently  know  it.  No  shot  at  bird  or 
beast  may  be  fired  within  ten  Ri,  or  thirty  miles  of  the  Ty- 
coon's residence,  and  Yokohama,  alas !  is  only  seventeen  miles 
distant.  To  the  Japanese,  probably,  it  is  no  privation,  but  to 
an  Englishman,  sick  of  pork  and  fowls  all  the  year  round,  and 
eager  for  open  air  sport  and  exercise,  it  is  very  hard ;  but  the 
Japanese  officials  seem  to  take  all  the  more  pleasure  in  vigor- 
ously insisting  upon  the  inviolability  of  the  laws.*     Their  art- 

*  This  was  felt  a  great  grievance  by  the  Foreign  residents  at  Yokohama, 


Chap.  XV.]  WILD-FOWL.  2^3 

ists  equally  excel,  from  long  and  loving  study,  in  depicting  all 
kinds  of  wild-fowl,  of  which  the  following  is  an  illustration, 
copied  from  a  Japanese  print.    Hawking  seems  the  only  sport 


in  vogue  even  among  the  privileged  and  higher  classes,  and 
that,  in  the  imperial  domain,  is  strictly  limited  likewise  to  the 
Tycoon.  No  private  individual,  so  I  am  told,  may  even  keep 
a  falcon,  of  which  there  are  some  very  fine  specimens.  This  is 
only  one  of  the  numerous  petty  restraints  and  restrictions  aris- 
ing from  a  totally  different  state  of  society  and  political  organ- 
ization, of  a  more  or  less  irritating  and  vexatious  character,  to 
which  foreigners  must  perforce  submit  who  take  up  their  resi- 
dence in  Japan.  The  Diplomatic  Agents  were  even  recom- 
mended, as  a  means  of  avoiding  insult,  never  to  go  out  on  foot 
or  on  horseback, but  only  in  norimons,  shut  up,  and  Mith  a 
couple  of '  yaconins'  in  attendance.  A  pleasant  life  they  would 
have  of  it,  under  such  conditions.     And  how  long  will  this  last, 

and  led  to  much  ill  feeling,  as  well  as  some  bloodshed.  Tlie  restriction  was 
probably  all  the  more  tenaciously  maintained  by  the  Government  of  the  Ty- 
coon from  the  fact  that  carrying  fire-arms  and  shooting  wore  privileges  they 
were  determined  the  Japanese  should  not  have,  as  involving  danger  to  the 
State.  The  great  mass  of  the  nation  are  denied  all  privileges,  and  none 
more  jealoosly  thao  the  right  of  carrying  fire-arms. 

M2 


2Y4  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XV. 

or  will  it  ever  admit  of  improvement  ?  We  must  hope  so,  for, 
as  one  of  my  colleagues  observed,  '  il  laisse  beaucoup  d  de- 
sirer P 

Our  walk  is  coming  to  an  end ;  storks  aud  wild-fowls  are 
already  behind  us,  left  unmolested  to  their  privileged  immuni- 
ties. And  now  we  are  at  the  land  entrance  of  Yokohama, 
facing  a  town  of  two  or  three  streets  deep  branching  off  one 
large  trunk,  nearly  half  a  mUe  in  length.  It  is  all  timber  built, 
consisting  entirely  of  shops,  except  the  few  houses  and  gar- 
dens at  the  end  for  the  foreigners,  and  the  extensive  Custom- 
house establishment.  These  shops  are  all  filled  with  goods 
entirely  selected  to  suit  a  foreigner's  wants  and  tastes.  Let 
my  readers  figure  in  their  mind  all  they  have  ever  heard  or 
fancied  of  Japanese  ingenuity  and  perfection  of  work — in  lack- 
er, basket-work,  porcelain,  and  bronze,  fancy  silks  and  embroi- 
deries, spread  out  before  them  in  every  tempting  form,  the 
very  shopkeepers  having  learned  enough  English  to  tell  you 
'  all  vely  cheap,' '  vely  good'  (for  the  r  is  seldom  heard  from  a 
Japanese  tongue),  and  if  you  ask,  he  will  tell  you  the  prices 
also  tolerably  intelligibly,  and  then  judge  how  few  button  up 
their  pockets  and  walk  away,  like  wise  people ! 

But  I  came  with  deliberate  intention  to  look,  to  examine, 
and  to  buy — my  friends  had  so  persecuted  me  to  spend  their 
money  for  them,  some  one  hundred  dollars,  some  five  hundred, 
or  '  any  amount,'  only  to  send  them  '  beautiful  things  from  Ja- 
pan,' where,  to  their  sorrow,  they  could  not  go  in  person. 
*  Beautiful  things  !'  It  is  easily  said,  my  friends,  but  it  is  dis- 
tressingly vague.  Pretty,  cheap,  and  dear  are  all  relative 
terms,  and  subject  to  infinite  diversity  of  opinion.  However, 
since  I  can  not  help  myself,  I  must  needs  take  the  plunge ;  my 
friends'  money  to  spend,  and  my  own  taste  to  guide  me,  in 
this  most  trying  voyage  of  discovery.  And,  first,  I  am  to  find 
a  pair  of  well-bred  Japanese  dogs, '  with  eyes  like  saucers,  no 
nose,  the  tongue  hanging  out  at  the  side,  too  large  for  the 
mouth,  and  white  and  tan  if  possible,  and  two  years  old.'  My 
friend,  you  see,  is  a  dog  fancier,  and  so  my  first  visit  is  to  the 
poultry  street — some  twenty  establishments,  with  the  most 
extraordinary,  and,  it  must  also  be  said,  the  most  rare  and 
beautiful  collection  of  birds  and  beasts — the  former  especially 
— that  can  well  be  seen  out  of  a  zoological  garden.  We  turn 
into  the  first  of  them  by  a  large  court-yard  which  runs  behind 
the  shop,  and  all  round  are  pens  for  the  different  occupants  be- 
low, with  cages  above  for  the  smaller  birds.  Our  first  ac- 
quaintance is  with  a  long-bearded  goat,  trying  in  vain  to  get 
over  his  prison  bars;  for  goats  are  only  objects  of  curiosity  in 


Chap.  XV.]  JAPANESE  SHOPS.  2V7 

this  part  of  Japan,  although  tliey  do  exist  as  an  indigenous 
race,  I  believe ;  and  next  to  him  a  grizzly  black  bear,  small,  but 
wild  and  vicious-looking — the  sort  of  animal  one  likes  to  meet 
in  a  cage  much  better  than  '  at  home'  in  the  woods.  Then  a 
red  fallow  deer,  and  a  very  fine  one.  A  great  stork  beyond  is 
gobbling  up,  as  usual,  his  live  food,  and  with  his  usual  gusto 
and  disregard  of  their  feelings ;  and  then  come  various  kinds 
of  web-footed  birds,  apparently  of  the  duck  species,  one  twice 
the  size  of  a  common  duck,  and  quite  unknown  to  me.  The 
beautiful  colored  drake  of  the  mandarin  species  and  his  home- 
ly mate  are  there;  and  then  such  a  collection  of  pheasants! 
The  gold  bird  with  its  gorgeous  plumes,  the  silver  pheasant 
of  almost  greater  beauty,  with  its  silvery  silky  feathers  and 
long  sweeping  tail ;  the  copper  pheasant,  never  seen  alive  in 
Europe,  unless  two  pair  which  I  sent  from  Japan  to  the  Zoo- 
logical Society  may  have  arrived ;  then  a  species  akin  to  our 
own  —  and  to  think  that  a  pair  of  each  could  be  bought  for 
some  thirty  shillings,  and  yet  to  have  to  leave  them  behind, 
was  very  sad !  Strange  freak  of  Nature  that  in  all  these  it  is 
the  male  bird  that  has  a  monopoly  of  the  gay  plumage,  tufts, 
and  other  personal  advantages,  and  the  poor  lady  birds  are  left 
shorn  of  all  ornaments — sober,  sad-colored  matrons,  with  noth- 
ing whatever  to  attract  admiration!  This  seems  a  most  un- 
equal and  hard  distribution  of  Nature's  gifts.  What  a  change 
there  would  be  in  this  world  of  ours,  if,  with  the  human  race, 
the  same  law  prevailed.  I  think  man  should  be  especially 
grateful  that  it  is  quite  otherwise  ordered !  We  pass  on  to  a 
long  line  of  cages  containing  doves  and  pigeons  of  most  rare 
plumage  and  colors,  pink  and  blue,  some  tinted  with  gold  and 
green  of  the  softest  hue.  Bantam  fowls,  indigenous  or  origin- 
ally from  Java,  I  can  not  discover ;  but  in  their  miniature  pro- 
portions and  perfect  forms  they  are  great  beauties.  We  can 
not  stay  here  all  day,  however.  The  red-faced  monkey  (the 
only  species  in  Japan),  fowls  of  all  sizes  and  color,  swans,  and 
geese,  and  ducks  (some  very  captivating),  we  pass  without 
note.  An  aquarium,  with  all  sorts  of  strange-looking  elfs  — 
gold,  and  silver,  and  spotted  purple  fishes,  with  undeniable 
tails  dividing  into  three  large  sweeps  of  diaphonous  texture, 
beguile  us  on  the  way  out.  One  much  admired  just  emerges 
from  the  shadow  of  the  artificial  rock,  with  its  tufts  of  water- 
grass  and  marine  creepers,  the  most  prized  of  the  lot,  with  a 
body  like  a  barrel,  to  which  a  golden  head  and  tail  seem  to 
have  been  set  on  in  the  most  capricious  way.  My  dogs  are 
chosen,  a  species  of  Charles  II.  spaniel  intensified  ;  and,  by-the- 
by,  there  is  so  much  genuine  likeness  that  I  think  it  probable 


2^8  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XV. 

the  merry  monarch  was  indebted  to  liis  marriage  with  a  Poi'tu- 
guese  princess  for  the  original  race  of  spaniels  as  well  as  her 
dower  of  Bombay.  I  looked  for  some  specimens  of  the  167 
species  of  bees  with  which,  according  to  Siebold,  Japan  is  gift- 
ed, but  in  vain.  As  we  pass  into  the  shop,  we  come  upon  a 
number  of  toy  cages  occupied  by  mice  with  pink  eyes,  turning 
a  wheel  which  sets  in  motion  half  a  dozen  of  the  primitive  ma- 
chines with  which  they  separate  the  rice  from  its  husk  here  aa 
in  China.  Poor  little  workmen !  they  are  happily  uncon- 
scious— happier  than  many  higher  placed  in  tiie  scale — that  it 
is  a  life  slavery  of  bootless  labor,  to  which  a  hard  fortune  has 
consigned  them !  In  the  shop  is  the  dried  body  of  a  mermaid 
most  ingeniously  put  together,  as  natural  and  lifelike  as  any 
dried  mummy !  But  I  must  not  take  you  over  the  lacker, 
and  silk,  and  porcelain  shops,  or  where  should  I  stop  ?  A 
broad  sheet  of  the  '  Times'  would  not  suffice ;  and,  besides,  it 
would  be  a  sort  of  Tantalus  cup,  for  I  am  positive,  were  I  to 
describe  some  of  the  things,  the  desire  to  possess  them  would 
haunt  my  readers  like  a  dream  of  unattainable  bliss.  There,  at 
the  corner,  is  the  principal,  or,  at  least,  one  of  the  largest,  the 
best,  and  most  expensive  of  the  establishments — the  '  Howell 
and  James'  of  Yokohama.  One  glance,  and  then  we  will  say 
good-by  to  lacker,  in  description  at  least,  while  I  pursue,  in  the 
most  conscientious  way,  my  labor  of  spending  other  people's 
money  in  the  purchase  of  things  they  do  not  want  or  may  not 
like.  Here  in  the  lower  floor  are  merely  such  things  as  you 
see  every  where — some  lacker  trays,  oblong,  round,  and  oval, 
but  miracles  of  cheapness — five,  ten,  and  fifteen  shillings  each, 
of  good  lacker,  and  many  of  beautiful  design.  But  some 
there  are  of  inlaid  wood  and  lacker  combined,  at  very  different 
prices.  There  are  boxes  with  every  kind  of  gold  tracery  and 
design,  which  here  are  used  for  can*ying  letters,  but  would  do 
admirably  for  gloves.  Some  are  with  birds  and  trees  in  raised 
gold  relief,  as  rich  as  well  can  be,  and  of  all  prices,  from  five 
shillings  to  as  many  guineas.  But  up  stairs  is  the  fine  collec- 
tion —  cabinets  of  many  woods,  inlaid ;  and  lacker  luncheon 
cabinets,  of  such  infinite  ingenuity,  variety,  and  perfection  of 
form,  that  they  could  not  fail  to  win  a  lady's  heart  if  ofi*ered 
as  work-boxes.  Here  is  one  of  a  square  form,  standing  some 
eighteen  inches  high,  with  a  globe  top,  in  imitation  of  a  huge 
egg,  or  crackled  china,  wliich  opens  out  into  a  multiplicity  of 
drawers,  and  trays,  and  boxes  of  finished  workmanship,  em- 
bossed in  gold  and  silver.  '  A  very  perfect  piece  of  work  and 
ingenuity,  truly.  How  much  ?'  '■JJcorah  na  mong  f  that  is 
about  the  first  sentence  every  foreigner  learns  here,  and  the 


Chap,  XV.]  BAZAR. -GEWGAWS.  2/9 

second,  which  he  immediately  finds  the  necessity  of  acquiring, 
is  *■  Tdkai-meipd  tdkeiP  '  Too  dear,  much  too  dear !'  But  are 
the  things  so  dear?  They  are  both  dear  and  cheap.  Some 
of  the  older  ware  is  much  prized,  either  as  we  prize  old  China, 
because  it  is  old  and  can  not  be  easily  come  at — a  very  silly 
reason,  it  appears  to  me  —  or  because  it  is  really  better  than 
the  more  modern,  and  can  only  be  had  in  limited  quantity; 
and  very  long  prices  are  very  often  asked  and  given  for  them. 
Then,  again,  there  have  been  sent  lately,  by  Daimios  of  the 
less  wealthy  classes,  fine  specimens  of  lacker — heirlooms  it  is 
said,  which,  nevertheless,  they  are  willing  to  part  with — for  a 
consideration.  Whether  this  be  true  or  not,  large  and  beauti- 
ful specimens  are  often  left  to  be  sold  with  the  Japanese  deal- 
ers at  a  fixed  price,  and  you  must  either  give  it  or  go  without 
the  articles.  In  other  cases  the  shopkeeper  will  ask  you  500 
itziboos,  and  in  the  end  take  300,  or  perhaps  100 !  There  can 
be  no  established  price  for  such  things,  because  they  are  not 
in  common  demand,  nor  can  they  be  multiplied.  They  are  all 
'fancy'  articles  and  with  a  'fancy'  price.  'But  what  for  this 
bijou  of  a  work-box,  for  such  it  ought  to  be  —  IhorahT 
Eighty  itziboos,  he  says.  How  cheap,  you  think !  yet  that  is 
five  guineas,  and  very  pretty  things  are  to  be  bought  in  Lon- 
don and  Paris,  or  Berlin,  for  five  guineas!  And  this  inlaid 
cabinet,  with  panels  and  cameos  of  porcelain — he  wants  500 
silver  itziboos  for  it ;  and  that,  you  see,  is  not  far  from  forty 
guineas,  which,  after  all,  is  a  long  price,  beautiful  as  the  articles 
are.*  But  some  of  the  things  are  really  wonderfully  cheap, 
while  others,  again,  seem  unreasonably  dear,  without  the  miin- 
itiated  being  able  to  detect  much  difierence  in  the  work. 
There  is  a  difference,  in  most  cases,  in  the  cost  of  the  produc- 
tion, from  a  greater  perfection  of  the  work  and  material.  But, 
however  interesting  and  amusing  shopping  may  be  on  the 
spot,  and  to  the  actual  purchaser,  it  is  dull  work  in  descrip- 
tion, and  proverbially  so  both  in  practice  and  imagination  to  a 
lookei'  on;  so  we  will  say  farewell  to  this  monster  bazar,  where 
pretty  things  are  easily  to  be  found,  and  a  large  simi  of  mon- 
ey quite  as  easily  to  be  spent,  and  lost  for  all  other  purposes. 

Specimens  of  the  lacker,  porcelain,  and  bronze,  many  of  them 
very  choice  and  rare,  I  collected  and  sent  to  the  Great  Exhi- 
bition, that  it  might  be  seen  how  far  they  would  bear  the  test 
of  close  comparison  with  the  best  workmanship  of  Europe ; 
and  I  think  tlie  result  was  by  no  means  to  the  dispaiagement 
of  the  Japanese. 

*  Several  of  these  articles  were  sent  to  the  Japan  Court  in  the  Exhibition, 
anil  jiruveU  objects  of  interest,  attracting  many  admirers. 


280  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XV. 

As  I  have  given  the  fruit  of  my  own  observation  in  regard 
to  the  agriculture  of  Japan,  so  far  as  I  was  enabled  to  speak  at 
the  time,  I  may  as  well  say  here  that  subsequently,  during  a 
journey  into  the  interior,  I  had  the  advantage  of  Mr.  John 
Veitch's  greater  knowledge  as  a  practical  gardener  and  bota- 
nist, who  was  in  search  of  new  species  in  the  vegetable  king- 
dom. And  various  collections  were  made  with  his  assistance 
for  the  royal  gardens  at  Kew  and  Windsor.  I  profited  by  the 
opportunity  also  to  obtain  from  him  a  note  of  the  results  of 
his  observation  both  as  to  the  agriculture,  the  crops,  trees,  and 
flora  of  the  country,  and  these  I  have,  with  his  permission, 
given  entire  in  the  Appendix.*  Although  several  new  plants 
and  species  were  found,  particularly  among  the  conifers,  in 
which  Japan  is  rich,  it  must  needs  be  incomplete  while  great 
part  of  the  country  remains  unexplored ;  but  I  trust  it  will  be 
found  to  convey  a  good  deal  that  is  both  new  and  interesting 
on  the  subjects  touched  upon.  I  have  had  many  inquiries 
about  the  system  of  cultivation  followed,  and  the  rotation  of 
crops  in  Japan,  but  I  fear  any  thing  it  has  been  in  my  power  to 
obtain  in  the  way  of  information  will  fall  far  short  of  what  is 
desired.  The  Bishop  of  Victoria,  with  whom  I  had  some  con- 
versation on  the  subject,  has  given  nearly  all  the  information 
at  present  attainable,  in  a  chapter  devoted  to  the  matter,  in  his 
*  Ten  Weeks  in  Japan,'  and  it  would  therefore  be  superfluous 
to  repeat  it  here.  I  will  merely  say  that  the  conclusion  he  ar- 
rives at  accords  with  my  own,  namely,  that '  any  rotation  of 
crops  which  can  answer  to  the  English  system  of  agriculture 
is  unknown  and  unpracticed,  and  that  the  disposition  of  the 
land  for  convenience  of  irrigation  necessary  for  a  rice  crop  ex- 
cludes the  possibility  of  the  same  field  being  used  for  any  oth- 
er crop  requiring  a  drier  condition  of  the  soil.'  After  the 
above  had  been  written,  I  obtained  some  farther  notes  from 
Captain  Vyse,  H.  M.  Consul  at  Kanagawa,  as  to  the  agricul- 
ture and  rotation  of  crops  in  his  district,  which,  from  their  pre- 
cise and  practical  character,  will,  I  think,  be  received  by  those 
interested  in  the  subject  as  a  valuable  addition  to  our  previous 
knowledge.  The  following  is  the  substance  of  his  communi- 
cation : 

Agriculture  in  this  district,  as  I  believe  nearly  over  all  Ja- 
pan— all  that  I  have  seen,  certainly — is  the  chief  occupation  of 
the  population.  The  land  under  cultivation  here  is  exceeding- 
ly fertile,  the  soil  being  a  liarht  friable  loam  of  considei-able 
depth,  and  easily  worked.  The  district  is  very  hilly,  but  this 
does  not,  as  in  many  other  countries,  lead  to  much  waste  land. 
*  See  Appendix  E. 


Chap.  XV.  j  SYSTEM  OF  AGRICULTURE.  281 

In  general,  the  Japanese  makes  the  most  of  his  farm,  and  in 
many  instances  the  hills  are  terraced  with  prodigious  labor, 
and  cultivated  in  a  skillful  manner,  and  this  often  carried  on  to 
a  surprising  height.  '  In  an  extended  view  of  the  country,  in 
any  commanding  situation,'  the  Consul  remarks  very  truly, '  a 
bald  or  barren  appearance  is  nowhere  presented.  On  the  con- 
trary, one  unbroken  expanse  of  abundant  vegetation  and  verd- 
ure is  to  be  seen  throughout  the  year.  Again,  what  might  ap- 
pear to  some  persons  to  be  waste  land  is  not  so.'  Whether 
from  the  force  of  custom  or  by  law,  the  Japanese  so  regulates 
his  land  that  each  part  will  have  time  to  rest  and  recreate  it- 
self for  several  years.  But,  while  this  desirable  object  is  aim- 
ed at,  no  part  of  the  land  is  allowed  to  remain  perfeclly  idle. 
The  same  principle  in  action  with  the  brain  and  intellectual  ca- 
pacity seems  equally  applicable  here,  and  change  of  occupation 
suffices  to  restore  the  exhausted  powers  or  give  the  needful 
rest.  In  fact,  as  the  earth,  like  the  human  mind,  can  never  be 
said  to  be  wholly  unoccupied  or  unproductive — the  first,  in  its 
idleness,  producing  fruit  too  often  of  an  undesirable  kind,  and 
the  land,  if  left  to  itself,  a  plentiful  crop  of  weeds — the  true 
principle  would  seem  to  have  been  adopted  by  the  Japanese, 
in  never  allowing  the  land  to  be  wholly  fallow  or  unemployed. 
Thus,  when  not  producing  edible  crops,  the  ground  is  planted 
with  trees  of  whatever  kind  the  owner  may  think  best,  and  by 
the  time  that  it  is  again  to  be  brought  into  cultivation  those 
trees  turn  out  to  be  useful  timber.  When  the  traveler  sees  a 
large  space,  whether  on  hill  or  level  land,  covered  with  trees 
and  shrubs,  and  apparently  in  a  wild,  neglected  state,  he  may, 
perhaps,  infer  that  the  Japanese  agriculturist  is  unthrifty  or 
negligent,  and  that  so  much  land  is  far  from  being  turned  to 
its  proper  account.  But  this  would  be  a  great  mistake.  The 
careful  and  general  cultivation  of  trees  and  shrubs  by  the  Jap- 
anese serves  many  useful  as  well  as  ornamental  purposes. 
Within  the  limits  of  this  consular  district  during  the  past  year 
many  hills  might  be  seen  the  sides  and  summits  of  which  were 
being  cleared  of  trees,  and  others  which  had  recently  been  un- 
der cultivation  were  carefully  laid  down  under  crops  of  trees. 
The  Japanese  can  not,  in  truth,  affiird  to  leave  any  part  of  the 
land  idle,  because,  in  the  first  place,  there  is  population  press- 
ing on  the  means  of  subsistence  derived  from  the  soil,  whose 
every  want  has  been  for  centuries  supplied  from  that  source 
and  their  waters.  And,  in  the  next  place,  almost  all  rents  and 
revenues  are  paid  in  kind — principally  in  rice.  A  feudal  sys- 
tem prevails ;  but  beyond  this,  what  are  the  special  conditions 
under  which  land  is  held  and  cultivated  can  not  be  ascertained 


282  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XV. 

with  any  fullness  or  accuracy  of  detail.  The  special  relations 
of  landlord  and  tenant,  and  the  particulars  of  sub-letting,  are 
not  well  known.  In  the  Japanese  social  scale  the  Hi-yak-sho, 
or  farmer,  holds  the  second  place.  What  place  the  mere  la- 
borer occupies,  and  the  relative  value  of  his  life,  was  rather  cu- 
riously illustrated  in  an  official  communication  from  the  Minis- 
tei's  of  Foreign  Affairs  respecting  the  execution  of  two  of  the 
*vilaine'  class  at  Nagasaki,  condemned  to  death  for  having 
caused  the  death  of  one  of  the '  Odin's' men  found  dead  in  the 
street,  with  his  jaw  broken  and  other  signs  of  violence.  The 
Admiral,  Sir  James  Hope,  wrote  to  me  to  request  the  sentence 
might  be  commuted  for  some  less  serious  punishment,  as  he 
was  not  satisfied  that  the  deceased  might  not  have  been  him- 
self in  some  degree  to  blame,  as  it  was  known  he  was  drunk 
when  last  seen,  probably  shortly  before  he  met  with  his  death. 
To  this  the  Ministers  replied  in  the  following  terms  : 

'  The  person  who  lately  killed  the  British  sailor  at  Nagasaki 
was  one  of  the  lowest  class,  named  Sookemats,  consequently 
he  is  not  allowed  to  bring  in  any  excuse  whatever ;  for  there 
is  a  law  of  long  standing  in  our  empire,  that  any  one  of  the 
lower  order  of  persons  who  causes  death  to  another  in  conse- 
quence of  a  blow  given,  although  unintentional,  is  to  be  be- 
headed ;  which  punishment  is  called  geshinnin.  Then  this  is 
not  a  law  that  was  made  because  the  British  nation  was  con- 
cerned, as  human  life  is  of  permanent  importance,  and  to  de- 
prive any  one  of  it  is  deserving  of  the  highest  punishment. 
The  above-mentioned  law  was  enacted  to  deter  the  evil  dispo- 
sition of  every  one.' 

Under  such  a  law  it  behooves  a  Sooketnats  to  beware  how  he 
strikes,  since  he  is  not  allowed  to  plead  '  any  justification ;'  and 
so  great  is  the  value  of  any  other  life  in  Japan,  that  his  must 
pay  the  forfeit  if  death  in  any  way  is  caused  by  him.  I  do  not 
know  whether  an  old  traditional  law  of  this  kind  has  any  thing 
to  do  with  the  exceedingly  inofiensive  character  of  the  peas- 
antry— so  far  as  I  have  had  the  means  of  judging  in  all  my 
travels  through  the  country — or  whether  it  may  be  taken  as 
an  evidence  of  the  spirit  of  resistance  having  been  crushed  out 
of  them  under  a  feudal  system,  with  such  sharp  and  decisive 
penalties  on  the  lowest  classes  for  any  act  of  violence. 

Otherwise,  in  Japan  as  in  China,  agriculture  is  held  in  high 
esteem,  and  it  is  the  policy  of  the  rulers  to  encourage  it  in  ev- 
ery way.  All  revenues  of  Dairaios  are  estimated  at  so  many 
kokous  of  rice.  This  I  conceive,  however,  is  merely  a  stand- 
ard of  value,  just  as  a  pound  sterling  is  with  us,  and  does  not 
give  any  clew  to  the  quantity  of  land  these  territories  may 


Chap.  XV]    LAND-TAX.— CROPPING.— IRRIGATION.  283 

contain.  The  standard  of  superficial  measurement  is  a  tsoobo^ 
being  about  6  feet  square,  or,  in  precise  terras,  the  side  is  5 
feet  Hi  inches,  and  containing,  therefoi'e,  an  area  of  35.25 
square  feet  instead  of  36.  In  referring  to  the  size  of  a  farm, 
an  it-than  containing  300  tsoobo  is  the  measurement  generally 
mentioned,  and  1  it-than  of  good  rice  land  is  calculated  to  pro- 
duce 1600  its-go  (or  about  532  lbs.  avoirdupois)  of  clean  rice  at 
one  cropping.  The  pound  weight  is  divided  into  160  equal 
parts,  of  which  120  make  1  lb.  avoirdupois.  The  smallest  Jap- 
anese grain  measure  is  an  its-go^  which,  of  clean  rice,  contaias 
5^  oz.  avoirdupois. 

1  Its-go  =      J  lb. 

10  Its-go  (1  Ischo)       =     3i  lbs. 
10  Ischo  (1  Itho)         =  30i^  " 
10  Itho  (1  Its'  kokou)=333i^  " 

The  land-tax  is  said  to  be  3  itziboos  silver  per  ithan  of  300 
tsoobo,  or  about  £l  per  acre  per  annum.  If  paid  in  coin  it  is 
collected  quarterly,  but  if  paid  in  rice  it  is  collected  only  once 
a  year,  when  the  crop  has  been  gathered  in,  and  in  such  case  is 
said  to  be  one  sixth  of  the  produce.  The  officers  of  the  land- 
lord or  of  the  government  make  surveys  annually  at  a  time 
when  they  can  best  approximate  to  the  amounts  of  the  rents 
and  other  charges.  If  the  yield  is  large  the  revenue  will  be  in 
proportion  ;  if  deficient,  by  this  mode  of  adjustment,  the  land- 
lord, still  only  receiving  his  sixth,  suffers  with  the  cultivator. 

Cropping  and  the  rotation  of  crops  are  thoroughly  under- 
stood by  the  Japanese.  Rice  is  the  staple  food  of  the  whole 
population,  and  it  is  grown  abundantly  in  the  district  of  Kana- 
gawa,  and  over  the  country  generally  wherever  the  nature  of 
the  soil  will  admit  the  possibility,  under  the  strongest  compul- 
sion of  unwearied  labor,  irrigation  and  manuring  all  combined. 
Here  the  water  required  for  irrigation  is  plentifully  supplied 
by  the  streams  and  rivulets  to  be  met  with  in  all  directions, 
and  often  most  ingeniously  turned  from  their  natural  course  to 
wherever  they  may  be  required  by  the  provident  farmer.  As 
I  have  already  stated,  there  are  several  kinds  or  varieties  of 
rice  in  this  country,  some  adapted  for  growing  on  irrigated 
lands,  and  others  on  higher  and  drier  situations.  All  the  val- 
leys— and  some  are  of  great  extent — are  planted  with  rice,  and 
crops  of  wheat,  rape,  peas,  beans,  etc.,  line  the  hill-sides  and 
high  lands.  It  is  said  that  oats  are  cultivated  in  some  parts  of 
the  country,  but  none  have  been  seen  at  the  consular  ports,  nor 
did  I  come  upon  any  in  my  travels  through  the  interior.  No- 
where in  the  world,  perhaps,  can  the  Jaj)anese  farmer  be  match- 
ed for  the  good  order  in  which  he  keeps  his  farm.    The  fields 


284 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  XV. 


are  not  only  kept  scrupulously  free  from  weeds,  but  in  other 
respects  the  order  and  neatness  observable  are  most  pleasing. 
The  manure  chiefly  in  use  (urine  and  night  soil)  no  doubt  tends 
very  materially  to  abate  the  growth  of  weeds ;  but  this  does 
not  detract  from  the  skill,  industry,  and  diligence  which  the 
Japanese  agriculturist  brings  to  bear  upon  his  land.  Men, 
women,  and  children  may  be  seen  in  the  fields  early  and  late, 
and  the  labor  is  chiefly  manual.  A  plow  drawn  by  bullocks 
or  ponies  is  used  sometimes,  but,  generally  speaking,  mattocks 
and  hoes  are  the  implements  by  which  the  land  is  prepared  and 
every  part  of  the  field  labor  performed.  The  sketches  already 
given  (see  pp.  261-267),  from  Japanese  designs,  illustrative  of 
their  field  labors,  are  wonderfully  faithful  in  outline,  character, 
and  detail.  Flails  and  winnowing  machines  similar  to  those 
in  England  are  in  common  use,  and  a  sort  of  carding  machine 
also.  Large  fans  worked  by  hand  are  also  used  in  winnowing. 
To  separate  the  rice  from  the  husk,  a  section  of  a  large  tree  is 
scooped  out  so  as  to  form  a  mortar,  in  which  the  rice  is  pound- 
ed with  a  large  wooden  pestle  or  mallet,  sometimes  worked  by 
hand,  but  generally  fixed  on  a  fulcrum,  and  worked  by  the  feet 
or  by  water-power.     Every  where  in  Japan  may  be  seen  the 

most  successful  efi:brts  to  econo- 
mize labor.  Rice  is  often  beat- 
en out  on  the  spot  where  it 
grows,  to  save  the  labor  of  car- 
rying it.  Thus  the  figure  rep- 
resented in  the  woodcut  is  not 
very  frequently  seen. 

The  chief  grains  and  vegeta- 
bles of  the  district  near  the  cap- 
ital and  the  port  of  Kanagawa 
are  rice,  millet,  beans,  peas,  cot- 
ton, wheat,  buckwheat,  tobac- 
co, and  a  great  variety  of  vege- 
tables. Rice  is  grown  as  it  is 
in  China.  The  fields  are  plow- 
ed and  irrigated.  The  seed  is 
first  sown  in  small  nurseries, 
and  transplanted  in  May  or 
June,  in  small  tufts  of  eight  or 
ten  plants,  in  rows  about  eight 
inches  apart.  The  plants  at  this  time  are  about  six  inches  in 
height.  The  harvest  commences  in  October.  Wheat  is  exten- 
sively grown  also.  It  is  sown  generally  in  drills,  in  November 
and  December,  and  harvested  in  May  and  June.    In  some 


AGRICULTUKAL   PROCESS. 


Chap,  XV.]       JAPANESE  VEGETABLES.  286 

places  the  grain  seems  to  be  sound  and  good  in  quality,  but  in 
other  parts  bad,  ill  colored,  and  greatly  worra-eaten  and  blight- 
ed. The  flour  of  the  best  quality  is  used  in  pastry  and  confeo- 
tionery,  and  I  can  answer,  from  a  long  experience,  that,  when 
good  of  its  kind,  it  makes  excellent  bread.  All  the  bread  con- 
sumed at  the  Legation  was  made  from  it  by  my  own  cooks, 
and  was  unexceptionable  both  in  appearance  and  flavor.  With 
the  Japanese,  boiled  rice  takes  the  place  of  baker's  biead,  the 
want  of  which  they  never  feel.  In  this  they  are  like  the  Chi- 
nese. I  remember  a  high  oflicial,  who,  on  being  told  we  did 
not  grow  rice,  but  ate  bread,  turned  to  his  brother  officer  and 
said  in  the  vernacular, '  Alas !  wretched  people,  they  have  no 
rice !'  So  much  are  we  creatures  of  habit  and  education,  that 
to  a  well-educated  and  intelligent  Chinese  it  appeared  impos- 
sible to  substitute  bread  for  rice  without  undergoing  the  great- 
est privation.  And  the  rice-eating  nations  carry  their  predi- 
lections to  such  an  extent,  that  they  reject  with  scorn  rice 
grown  in  different  localities.  The  Indian  considers  himself 
very  ill  used  if  he  is  fed  on  the  large-grained  rice  of  China,  re- 
garding it  as  a  coarser  and  less  nutritious  food  ;  while  the  Chi- 
nese retorts  upon  him  by  thoroughly  despising  all  Indian- 
grown  rice,  and  eating  it  only  on  compulsion  and  under  a  fam- 
ine pressure. 

There  are  also  five  kinds  of  millet  grown.  These  are  sown 
in  drills,  in  March  or  April,  and  harvested  in  September  and 
October.  It  is  generally  made  into  cakes,  and  forms  a  com- 
mon article  of  food.  Cotton,  too,  in  this  district  is  a  crop  of 
some  importance.  It  is  sown  in  March  or  April,  attains  a 
height  of  from  twelve  to  eighteen  inches,  and  is  harvested  in 
September  and  October.  Beans  are  largely  grown,  and  of 
numerous  varieties,  some  like  the  English  field  bean,  and  oth- 
ers like  the  French  bean,  though  both  inferior  in  flavor.  They 
are  grown  for  various  purposes,  and  are  eaten  as  food  in  a  green 
*  state,  and  also  when  ripe.  Some  kinds  are  ground  down  into 
powder  and  made  into  cakes.  Cattle  are  fed  on  some  kinds, 
and  soy  is  made  from  others.  Rape  is  grown  for  its  seed  here, 
as  in  China,  from  which  large  quantities  of  oil  are  made,  and  it 
forms  one  of  the  more  important  crops.  Peas  of  several  kinds 
are  also  grown  for  food,  and  eaten  both  in  a  green  and  dry 
state.  Buckwheat,  Indian  corn,  tobacco,  and  hemp  are  all 
grown  pretty  largely,  especially  tobacco ;  almost  every  man, 
and  woman  too,  smokes  in  Japan.  The  cultivation  of  veg- 
etables is  large,  and,  although  few  are  well  flavored  and  many 
are  nearly  savorless,  they  are  largely  consumed.  The  potatoes 
alone  are  an  exception  as  to  quality,  being  of  tolerable  flavor, 


286  THREE  VEARS  IK  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XV. 

though  small.  The  principal  vegetables  are  beans,  peas,  pota- 
toes, sweet  potatoes,  turnips,  carrots,  lettuce,  beet-root,  araras, 
yams,  tomatoes,  ginger,  the  egg  plant,  gourds,  melons,  chilies, 
cucumbers,  mushrooms,  horseradish  (the  roots  of  several  kinds 
of  lilies  are  eaten  also),  spinach,  leeks,  garlic,  capsicums,  endive, 
fennel;  an  enormous  turnip-radish,  often  twelve  or  fourteen 
inches  long,  is  consumed  in  great  quantity,  sliced  and  salted. 
The  young  shoots  of  the  bamboo,  sliced  and  boiled,  are  a  great 
delicacy.  It  will  be  seen  that  if  number  and  variety  can  make 
amends  for  quality,  the  Japanese  have  little  to  desire.  I  suc- 
ceeded in  introducing  to  this  part  of  Japan  cauliflowers,  Brus- 
sels sprouts,  and  Jerusalem  artichokes,  as  well  as  some  good 
lettuce,  endive,  parsley,  and  several  kinds  of  cabbage.  Mr. 
Loureiro,  at  Yokohama,  reared  a  large  garden  full  of  these  in 
great  perfection,  from  some  seeds  I  received  from  England. 

Of  the  fruit-trees  of  this  part  of  Japan  the  blossoms  seem  to 
be  the  best  part.  These  are  certainly  and  more  especially  ad- 
mired by  the  Japanese.  Every  tea-garden  in  the  vicinity  of 
Yeddo  tries  to  rival  its  neighbor  in  the  beauty  and  size  of  the 
peach  blossoms,  but  it  is  very  difficult  to  get  good  peaches  to 
eat.  They  are  all  habitually  plucked  unripe.  It  does  not  seem 
to  me  that  the  Japanese  have  any  idea  what  ripe  fruit  means. 
They  certainly  never  treat  themselves  to  it,  and  after  two  years' 
practice  my  market  coolie  could  never  be  made  to  understand 
what  constituted  ripeness.  "When  pressed  by  threat  of  dis- 
missal if  he  did  not  buy  ripe  peaches,  and  his  attention  was 
drawn  to  the  color  and  softness  as  signs,  we  found  he  used  to 
pinch  them 'black  and  blue'  as  the  readiest  means  of  meeting 
one  of  the  conditions  at  least  of  softness ;  and  no  doubt,  in  his 
own  mind,  thought  he  had  unreasonable  people  to  deal  with, 
when,  instead  of  praise  for  his  ingenuity,  he  fell  into  deeper 
disgrace.  Their  grapes  are  the  only  good  fruit,  and  they  come 
from  some  northern  district;  I  never  saw  them  growing.  I 
was  told  they  were  chiefly  the  produce  of  the  Daimio's  gar- 
dens, and  were  the  perquisites  of  the  female  part  of  the  estab- 
lishment, affording  by  their  sale  'pin  money.'  I  have  already 
spoken  of  the  fruit-trees,  and  I  believe,  with  more  competent 
judges,  that  all  the  principal  kinds,  with  proper  attention  and 
skill,  might  be  made  equal  to  any  in  the  world,  looking  to  the 
climate  and  the  soil.  Apples,  pears,  plums,  peaches,  chestnuts, 
persimmons,  oranges,  pomegranates,  figs,  lemons,  citrons,  wild 
strawberries,  all  are  here,  and  nearly  all  equally  bad,  if  we  ex- 
cept, perhaps,  the  watermelon,  the  persimmon,  and  grapes. 

Of  the  flora  of  Japan  I  have  little  new  to  add.  Mr.Veitch, 
I  think,  calculated  that  the  greater  proportion  of  the  plants 


Chap.  XV.]  JAPANESE  GARDENING.  287 

growing  wild  were  evergreen.  Many  of  the  flowering  shrubs 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Yeddo  are  of  this  class,  giving  a  peren- 
nial richness  of  color  and  foliage  to  the  country,  even  during 
the  winter  months.  Many  of  the  conifers  appear  to  be  peculiar 
to  Japan.  The  variety  of  showy  flowering  plants,  however,  is 
not  so  great  as  might  be  expected,  but  for  this  the  abundance 
and  variety  of  foliage  fully  compensates  to  all  lovers  of  beauti- 
ful scenery.  The  Japanese  are  great  amateur  gardeners,  and 
some  of  the  finest  botanical  specimens  in  this  quarter  of  the 
globe  are  to  be  found  about  Yeddo.  In  general,  the  Japanese 
gardener  who  rears  flowers  to  any  extent  does  so  with  the 
view  of  selling  them.  He  manages  to  have  at  all  seasons  a 
supply  of  the  kinds  most  esteemed,  and  every  day  the  flower 
vendor  may  be  seen  wandering  about,  offering  his  beautiful 
wares  for  sale,  and  pretty  certain  to  find  a  buyer  even  among 
the  poorest  householdei's.  To  be  sure  their  cost  is  usually 
small  (always  excepting  when  a  Foreign  Minister  is  the  pur- 
chaser), and,  as  every  family  has  its  household  altar,  and  among 
the  daily  offerings  a  bunch  of  flowers  is  never  omitted,  while 
their  graves,  too,  are  frequently  decorated  by  the  same  simple 
offering  of  affection,  the  demand  never  fails. 

Of  some  of  the  specimens  of  their  dwarf  trees  which  I  sent 
home,  an  account  appeared  in  the  '  Gardener's  Chronicle'  of 
January  11, 1862  ;  and,  as  it  is  evidently  from  the  pen  of  one 
much  better  able  to  do  the  subject  justice  than  I  can  be,  I  give 
the  following  extract : 

'It  is  perfectly  astonishing  to  see  the  amount  of  industry 
and  perseverance  which  the  Japanese  must  have  devoted  to 
the  production  of  these  plants.  There  were  some  little  fir- 
trees,  not  more  than  a  foot  in  height,  and  yet  I  counted  up- 
ward of  fifty  ties,  by  means  of  which  the  shoots  were  bent 
backward  and  forward  in  a  zigzag  way.  These  little  pines 
must  have  been  very  old,  and  many  years  must  have  been 
spent  in  bringing  them  to  this  state,  as  their  growth  under 
tnese  unfavorable  circumstances  must  have  been  slow  in  the 
extreme.  There  was  also  a  specimen  of  Podocarpus  or  Dam- 
«nara,  with  oval  leaves  beautifully  striped  with  pure  white. 
This  was  a  large  plant,  two  and  a  half  feet  high,  and  nearly  as 
much  through.  It  was  evident  that  an  old  narrow-leaved 
Podocarpus,  with  a  stem  two  inches  in  diameter,  had  been 
taken  up,  the  roots  cut  in,  and  the  stem  headed  down  to  with- 
in about  eighteen  inches  of  the  soil,  and  then  the  roots  cram- 
med into  as  small  a  pot  as  possible.  The  stem  had  been  cut 
off  horizontally,  and  a  circle  of  scions  of  the  oval-leaved  spe- 
cies inserted  between  the  bark  and  the  wood,    Most  of  these 


288  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XVI. 

had  grown,  and  as  they  grew  the  shoots  were  bent  downward, 
and  twisted  in  and  out,  so  that  the  stem  was  completely  hid- 
den in  a  dense  mass  of  foliage.  This  interesting  plant  is  now 
in  the  Royal  Garden  at  Osborne.  There  were  many  other 
plants  which  proved  that  the  Japanese  gardeueis  are  very 
clever  in  grafting,  and  employ  many  modes  of  performing  the 
operation.  There  was  one  species  of  a  Retinispora,the  branch- 
es of  which  were  bent  backward  and  forward  as  usual,  and 
these  branches  had  been  grafted  with  dozens  of  scions,  at  in- 
tervals of  about  an  inch  apart.  It  was  only  one  here  and  there 
which  had  failed ;  nearly  all  had  grown  well,  and  made  little 
tufts  of  shoots.  Unfortunately,  this  plant  had  died  upon  its 
voyage  to  England,  and  it  is  now  deposited,  with  some  other 
interesting  examples  of  dwarfed  trees,  in  the  Coniferous  case 
in  the  Museum  at  the  Royal  Botanical  Gardens  at  Kew.  Some 
camellias  which  were  sent  home  at  the  same  time  show  that 
the  Japanese  understand,  and  sometimes  practice,  the  inarch- 
ing of  plants. 

'The  most  valuable  plants  which  have  hitherto  been  intro- 
duced from  Japan  are  the  Conifera,  of  which  there  are  many 
distinct  kinds,  some  of  them  differing  so  widely  from  any  thing 
we  already  possess  that  they  will  form  quite  a  new  feature  in 
our  landscapes.  Also  some  curious  new  forms  of  chrysanthe- 
mums.' 

For  some  farther  details  on  the  flora  and  succession  of  crops, 
I  would  refer  those  especially  interested  in  the  subject  to  Mr. 
Veitch's  notes  in  the  Appendix.* 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  New  Year,  1860,  and  what  it  brought. — Incendiary  Fire  at  Yokohama. 
—  Assassination  of  a  Linguist  at  the  Gate  of  the  British  Legation. — 
Gloomy  Prospects. — Fire  at  the  French  Legation  the  same  Night. 

The  new  year,  1860,  began  with  the  most  enchanting  weath- 
er. The  sun  was  bright,  with  a  clear  sky,  and  a  hoar-frost  sil- 
vering the  lawn,  while  here  and  there,  on  the  banks,  a  slight 
drift  remained  from  the  snow  of  the  day  before.  The  ther- 
mometer was  standing  at  32°  when  I  got  up,  and  I  had  to 
break  the  ice  to  get  my  bath.  If  our  political  and  commercial 
horizon  had  only  been  as  bright  as  the  sky,  Japan  would  have 
not  wanted  attractions  of  a  rare  kind.     As  it  was,  no  one  could 

*  See  Appendix  E, 


Chap.  XVI.]    INCENDIARY  FIRE  AT  YOKOHAMA.  289 

with  any  safety  predict  what  our  relations  might  be  at  the  end 
of  the  year  thus  pleasantly  begun. 

Five  days  had  not  passed  over,  in  effect,  before  a  courier  ar- 
rived from  Yokohama,  with  intelligence  that  this  improvised 
wooden  settlement  had  been  in  part  destroyed  by  fire,  the  con- 
flagration beginning  in  the  part  occupied  by  the  Europeans. 
The  French  Consular  Agent,  himself  a  merchant,  happened  to 
be  at  the  Legation  on  a  visit,  and  he  was  left  in  doubt  whether 
his  house  and  property  had  not  been  destroyed  also.  As  there 
can  be  no  insurance  in  Japan,  such  a  catastrophe  involves  a 
total  loss,  it  may  be,  of  all  a  man  possesses  in  the  world.  One 
could  understand  his  feeling  when  he  exclaimed  that  he  would 
have  given  a  thousand  dollars  to  know  the  truth,  instead  of 
being  left  in  doubt  and  suspense,  which  is  to  many  the  most 
intolerable  of  all  states  of  mind.  Several  of  the  residents  had 
been  burned  out  of  house  and  home  —  young  beginners  too, 
who,  with  little  capital,  had  probably  lost  their  all.  The  only 
consolation  the  case  admitted  was  to  be  found,  perhaps,  in  the 
admirable  conduct  of  the  Governor,  the  officials  generally,  and 
the  firemen,  of  whom  there  are  organized  brigades.  Property 
was  effectively  protected  from  pillage,  and  good  order  pre- 
served, while  every  exertion  was  made  to  stop  the  progress  of 
the  flames.  This  was  in  pleasant  contrast  with  the  conduct  ob- 
served at  Nagasaki  in  a  similar  case,  where  the  officials  them- 
selves helped  to  plunder — so  it  was  reported  by  the  Consul — 
and  no  adequate  efforts  were  made  either  to  protect  movable 
property  or  to  extinguish  the  fire ;  in  pleasant  contrast,  it  must 
unfortunately  be  added,  to  the  conduct  of  officials  and  firemen 
at  a  much  later  period,  in  much  more  serious  circumstances, 
when  the  whole  Japanese  settlement,  and,  by  its  contiguity, 
the  large  European  quarter,  were  threatened  with  total  de- 
struction, and  when,  m  effect,  nearly  one  half  of  the  Japanese 
houses  were  completely  destroyed.  They  seemed  to  think  the 
evil  too  great  for  their  means  of  coping  with  it,  and  so  let  the 
fire  rage,  doing  nothing,  until  some  of  our  blue-jackets,  under 
the  orders  of  the  Commodore,  Lord  John  Hay,  and  Captain 
Faucon,  the  Commander  of  H.  I.  M.  S. '  Dordogne,'  with  their 
men,  proceeded  vigorously  to  pull  down  some  of  the  houses,  as 
the  sole  mode,  in  the  absence  of  water,  of  checking  the  devas- 
tating progress  of  the  flames. 

In  the  midst  of  their  efforts,  a  boatful  of  shipwrecked  peo- 
ple arrived,  lighted  to  their  haven  by  the  conflagration — a  cap- 
tain and  his  wife,  with  an  infant  at  her  breast,  and  fourteen 
other  people,  who  had  been  eight  days  and  nights  in  an  open 
boat !    What  cruel  sufferings  must  often  be  endured  in  this  life, 

N 


290  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XVI. 

of  wliich  those  wlio  are  more  fortunate  in  all  the  conditions  of 
existence,  living  in  peace  and  security,  know  nothing  !  And 
when  it  meets  our  eye  in  a  short  paragraph  of  a  newspaper, 
how  often  do  we  pass  on  to  some  more  pleasing  item  of  news, 
scarce  bestowing  a  thought  on  the  subject,  and  never  realizing 
the  facts,  or  the  sufferings  they  imply.  For  this  reason,  per- 
haps, if  for  no  other,  it  is  '  good  that  we  should  be  afflicted,' 
each  in  our  own  being  and  sphere,  for  the  whole  world  might 
otherwise  grow  too  utterly  callous  and  careless  of  human  suf- 
fering and  trial,  and  that  would  be  a  worse  evil  to  mankind, 
and  to  each  unit,  than  their  share  of  both,  met  in  a  right  spirit. 
This  philosophy  comes  late  to  many,  and  only  after  large  ex- 
perience of  the  world's  trials  and  its  ways ;  but  it  is  weil  that 
we  should  learn  even  at  last  to  pray,  not  for  exemption  from 
danger  or  sorrow,  but  courage  to  bear  our  lot,  and  grace  to  do 
what  is  right  under  the  sorest  trials. 

While  yet  occupied  by  these  events,  we  were  startled  by 
another  of  more  immediate  and  personal  import.  It  was  near 
midnight.  Mr.  Eusden,  the  Japanese  secretary,  was  standing 
by  my  side  before  saying  good -night,  when  the  longest  and 
most  violent  shock  of  an  earthquake  yet  experienced  since  our 
arrival  brought  evei-y  one  to  his  feet,  with  a  sudden  impulse  to 
fly  from  under  the  shaking  roof.  It  began  at  first  very  gently, 
but  rapidly  increased  in  the  violence  of  the  vibrations,  until  the 
earth  seemed  to  rock  under  our  feet,  and  to  be  heaved  up  by 
some  mighty  explosive  power  in  the  caldrons  beneath.  The 
Chinese  attribute  earthquakes  to  the  uneasy  movements  of  the 
Great  Dragon ;  the  Japanese  to  similar  disturbing  causes  in  a 
tortoise  on  which  the  earth  is  poised,  or  the  flapping  of  a 
whale's  tail;  but  not  even  Siebold  can  discover  where  the 
whale  has  his  habitat  in  Japanese  cosmogony !  Whoever  has 
looked  down  Vesuvius,  however,  when  it  is  in  full  blast,  and 
heard  the  hoarse  roar  of  the  waves  of  boiling  lava,  as  the  liquid 
fire  rushes  past  the  great  vent,  and  dashes  through  its  black- 
ened lips,  scattering  the  molten  sulphur  high  and  far,  will  have 
a  much  more  lively  idea  for  the  rest  of  his  life  whencs  earth- 
quakes come,  if  not  of  Pandemonium  itself. 

The  '  Saturday  Review,'  some  time  ago,  had  an  article  head- 
ed 'A  Week  of  Horrors.'  A  shipwreck,  the  destruction  of  a 
foreign  settlement  by  fire,  and  an  earthquake,  the  incidents  of 
our  Christmas  week  at  Yeddo,  might  fairly  lay  claim  to  the 
title !  One  of  my  guests  exclaimed,  after  enumerating  them 
one  by  one,  as  he  was  preparing  to  rcinvw^  II  faut  avouer  que 
ce  ri' est  pas  gai!  Still,  grave  or  gay,  the  day  sped  on,  and 
weeks  even  slipped  away,  when  we  were  recalled  to  a  con- 


Chap.  XVI.]  HORSES  FOR  CHINESE  WAR.  291 

sciousness  of  tl)e  flight  of  time  and  an  outer  world  by  the  ar- 
rival of  a  Commissariat  ofiicer,  with  orders  to  purchase  3000 
baggage-horses  for  our  array  transjjort  in  Cliina !  This  seemed 
a  very  forlorn  hope.  Horses  there  were  certainly  in  consider- 
able numbers,  but  how  were  we  to  ask  the  Japanese  for  the 
means  of  making  war  on  their  neighbor  and  ally? 

To  my  surprise,  I  confess,  they  did  not  point-blank  refuse  to 
entertain  tlie  question,  but  only  opposed  various  difficulties, 
founded  on  an  alleged  poverty  in  cattle,  the  shortness  of  the 
time  specified,  etc.  In  the  end  they  consented ;  but  the  whole 
business  was  so  managed  as  to  heap  troubles  on  every  body — 
deception,  vexations,  delays — yaconinerie  every  where,  and,  as 
a  natural  consequence,  mendacity  and  extortion  were  the  or- 
der of  the  day.  The  horses  were  bought  and  stabled — some 
few  shipped ;  but  before  the  bulk  of  the  animals,  that  had  been 
the  cause  of  incessant  anxiety  and  trouble  for  many  months, 
could  be  embarked  for  want  of  transport,  news  arrived  that 
they  were  not  required!  Pekin  had  surrendered,  peace  had 
been  proclaimed,  and  a  new  convention  signed  in  the  capital. 
The  news  was  pleasant  enough,  and  must  have  had  its  signifi- 
cance with  the  Coimcil  of  State  in  Yeddo.  It  was  probably 
more  welcome  to  the  yaconins,  however,  than  their  masters. 
A  sale  of  the  horses  on  hand  had  to  be  effected.  Horses  for 
which  we  had  been  made  by  them  to  pay  an  average  price  of 
$30  apiece,  because  they  were  so  scarce,,  could  only  be  disposed 
of  to  the  chief  of  the  fraternity,  because  they  were  so  plentiful, 
for  $5  eacli !  This  was,  indeed,  to  reverse  the  rule  of  trade, 
and  to  buy  in  the  dearest  market  and  sell  in  the  cheapest! 
But  there  was  no  remedy ;  and  when  I  mentioned  the  circum- 
stance to  the  Ministers  as  somewhat  singular  that  horses  in 
their  country  should  be  so  scarce  and  dear  when  wanted  by 
us,  and  so  superabundant  and  cheap  when  we  had  them  to 
sell  as  to  be  worth  nothing,  they  only  smiled,  and  evidently 
thought  it  a  good  joke,  observing  that  they  had  recommended 
us  not  to  buy  them ! 

I  have  greatly  outstripped  the  progress  of  events,  however, 
for  these  were  transactions  which  took  place  six  months  later. 
But  it  will  save  the  necessity  of  any  farther  reference  to  the 
same  subject.  The  first  month  of  the  year  was  yet  young 
when  a  report,  of  some  significance  apparently,  reached  me 
from  Yokohama  to  the  effect  that,  during  the  two  preceding 
days,  a  sudden  demand  had  arisen  among  the  Japanese  for 
fire-arms,  and  every  foreign  merchant  and  storekeeper  was  be- 
sieged with  applications  for  revolvers,  muskets,  etc.  By  treaty 
these  are  prohibited  articles,  and  can  not  be  sold  to  any  one 


292  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XVI. 

in  Japan  unless  to  the  authorities  themselves,  the  Government 
looking,  as  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  remark,  with  great 
jealousy  on  any  arming  of  the  population.  But  the  sale  being 
illegal  according  to  treaty  every  body  knew  would  be  no  im- 
pediment to  the  acquisition  of  as  many  as  might  be  on  hand, 
if  Japanese  purchasers  could  be  found  willing  to  pay  a  good 
price  for  them ! 

What  did  it  mean?  Did  it  bode  some  revolutionary  pro- 
ceeding on  the  part  of  the  Japanese  against  their  own  Gov- 
ernment, or  some  design  against  the  lives  of  foreigners  them- 
selves? Even  that  would  not  have  prevented  money  being 
made  by  their  sale,  but  it  lent  a  new  interest  to  the  question ! 
If  the  latter,  the  time  did  not  seem  happily  chosen,  as  the  Bay 
of  Yeddo,  so  often  bare  of  any  means  of  protection  from  for- 
eign ships  of  war,  could  now  boast  of  one  in  the  '  Powhatan* 
United  States  steam  frigate,  waiting  to  take  over  to  America 
a  Japanese  Diplomatic  Mission  for  the  exchange  of  ratifica- 
tions. 

"With  these  uneasy  elements  in  motion — rumors  of  danger — 
the  month  drew  near  its  close.  It  was  a  Sunday  afternoon 
(January  29),  when,  just  returned  from  a  visit  to  the  American 
Minister,  who  was  unwell,  I  heard  a  hasty  step  outside  my 
room,  and  Captain  Marten,  the  Commander  of  H.  M.  S. '  Roe- 
buck,' who  happened  to  be  a  guest  at  the  Legation,  threw 
back  the  sliding  panel.  'Come,  quickly;  your  linguist  is  being 
carried  in,  badly  wounded.'  My  heart  misgave  me  that  his 
death-knell  had  struck.  I  had  for  some  time  been  under  a 
conviction  that  danger  was  at  hand  in  some  shape,  and  his  fre- 
quent collisions  with  the  insolent  retainers  of  Daimios,  who 
never  lost  an  opportunity  of  insulting  him  in  the  streets,  had 
naturally  turned  my  attention  in  that  direction.  I  was  even 
seriously  meditating  sending  him  out  of  the  country,  for  his 
own  sake,  though  his  knowledge  of  the  Japanese  made  him 
very  useful,  if  not  necessary  to  me,  in  the  first  months  of  our 
location.  It  was  not  his  own  desire,  however,  and  I  had  hesi- 
tated, for  we  all  dislike  to  yield  to  intimidation.  I  felt,  never- 
theless, that  a  more  discreet  and  better-tempered  man  than  he 
had  any  pretensions  to  be  would  have  been  insecure ;  and,  lat- 
terly, he  had  received  a  distinct  warning  that  it  was  determ- 
ined to  take  his  life.  But  man's  previsions  and  best  precau- 
tions seem  idle  things  when  the  fatal  hour  has  come.  It  even 
would  seem,  at  times,  as  if  we  were  especially  and  fatally  blind- 
ed to  the  necessary  consequences  of  our  own  acts,  and  thus 
led  on,  step  by  step,  to  do  and  say  the  very  things  which,  could 
the  veil  of  Isis  be  only  lifted  for  a  second,  we  should  most 


Chap.  XVI.]  MURDER  OF  A  LINGUIST.  203 

carefully  and  anxiously  avoid,  and  thus  avert  the  impending 
destruction.  He  had  escaped  shipwreck — long  an  exile  and 
proscribed  outcast  from  his  own  country,  nothing  less  than 
such  great  and  unforeseen  events  as  the  renewal  of  relations 
with  Western  Powers  could  ever  have  restored  him  to  it — and 
he  came  back  only  to  find  a  bloody  grave,  though  it  seemed 
at  the  time  that  the  dearest  wishes  of  the  exile's  heart  were 
being  gratified  by  the  unexpected  way  open  for  his  return. 
There  is  an  observation  in  one  of  Mr.  Helps's  essays*  which 
must  often  have  occurred  in  similar  circumstances.  'Fre- 
quently it  seems  as  if  the  faculties  of  man  were  not  quite  ade- 
quate as  yet  to  his  situation — the  individual  seems  the  sport 
of  circumstances ;'  and  he  goes  on  to  observe  how  these  often 
seem  (maliciously,  as  it  were)  to  provide  a  man  with  '  a  good 
opportunity  for  working  out  the  errors  of  his  mind  and  sys- 
tem,' when  he  strains  his  fortune  to  the  uttermost,  and  it  breaks 
under  him,  as  it  did  with  Napoleon  in  the  great  Russian  cam- 
paign and  retreat  from  Moscow.  Dankirche,  in  his  way,  had 
afforded  a  fatal  illustration.  He  was  ill  tempered,  proud,  and 
violent;  and  in  returning  to  his  own  country  he  just  brought 
these  qualities — rendered  worse  by  long  impunity  in  America 
and  China — where  they  were  most  sure  to  bring  him  to  grief. 
They  were  characteristic  of  his  own  race,  but  among  them- 
selves they  were  kept  down  by  frequent  letting  of  blood. 

I  found  him  stretched  on  a  shutter,  hardly  conscious,  though 
be  turned  his  eyes  when  I  spoke  to  hira  as  though  he  heard 
and  recognized  me.  He  never  spoke,  and  I  saw  at  once  that 
he  was  mortally  wounded.  Death's  finger  had  already  been 
laid  on  his  quivering  lip.  One  or  two  convulsive  throes  shook 
his  whole  frame  while  we  were  getting  some  of  his  clothing 
off  to  examine  the  wounds,  and  then,  without  a  struggle,  he 
died.  There  was  something  awfully  sudden  in  the  catastro- 
phe; he  was  alive  and  among  us  not  ten  minutes  before.  It 
appeared  he  had  gone  down  to  the  gate  of  the  Legation,  open- 
ing upon  a  wide  space  close  to  the  high  road,  and  was  leaning 
against  the  entrance  or  doorway  to  a  small  nest  of  houses  at 
the  end  of  a  lane  close  by,  immediately  under  the  flag-staff,  and 
with  men,  women,  and  children  about,  in  broad  daylight,  when 
one  or  two  men  stole  stealthily  down  the  lane  behind  where 
he  stood,  and  a  short  sword  was  buried  to  the  hilt  in  his  body, 
transfixing  him  as  he  stood.  He  stiiggcred  a  few  paces  to- 
ward the  porter  at  the  gate,  who  drew  the  sword  out  from  his 
back,  and  there  he  fell  bathed  in  his  blood.  It  had,  indeed, 
been  a  home  thrust.  The  point  had  entered  at  his  back,  and 
*  Companions  of  m^  Solitude. 


294  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XVI. 

came  out  above  the  right  breast ;  and  thus  buried  in  his  body 
the  assassiu  left  it,  and  disappeared  as  stealthily  as  he  came, 
without  a  hand  or  a  voice  being  raised  to  stop  him.  The  deed 
must  have  been  seen  by  many,  but  all,  save  one  woman,  I  be- 
lieve, denied  seeing  the  blow  struck.  Either  they  were  told 
to  do  so,  or  knew  that  their  own  lives  might  pay  the  forfeit 
of  any  indiscretion.  With  the  authorities  on  the  one  side, 
and  the  assassin  and  his  friends  on  the  other,  justice  in  all  such 
cases  is  no  better  than  an  idle  dream.  I  felt  certain  from  the 
beginning  that  there  was  no  hope. 

Who  was  the  assassin,  and  what  was  the  motive  ?  Suspicion 
rested  more  particularly  upon  two,  the  first  a  Daimio's  drunken 
retainer,  who  attacked  him  in  the  street  a  few  days  previously 
and  had  been  arrested.  The  man,  however,  was  so  violent  in 
his  denunciations  of  vengeance,  that  the  police  were  intimidated 
and  let  him  go,  after  taking  his  name  or  the  name  he  chose  to 
give !  The  second  was  my  chief  cook,  lately  discharged,  and 
who  had  been  heard  to  say  somebody  would  kill '  Dan'  before 
very  long ;  and  he  Avas  in  the  kitchen  a  day  or  two  before,  with 
two  swords  in  his  belt.  Both  were  apprehended,  but  nothing 
came  of  it.  I  have  no  doubt  the  authorities  knew  perl'ectly 
well  who  the  parties  were,  whether  one  or  several.  Perhaps 
they  may  have  been  compelled  to  commit  the  Hara-Kiri,  but  I 
should  doubt  it.  It  is  more  probable  that  it  was  Avished  their 
renegade  subject,  whom  they  considered  as  dangerous,  'know- 
ing too  much'  (a  grave  offense  and  source  of  danger  always  in 
Japan),  might  be  put  away ;  and  if  they  did  not  themselves 
take  such  means  of  removing  him,  were  not  sorry  it  was  done 
for  them.  I  am  quite  satisfied  they  knew  the  blow  was  com- 
ing, from  the  visit  of  a  Governor  of  Foreign  Affairs  a  few  days 
previously,  who  saw  my  Japanese  secretary  and  spent  a  long 
time  in  denunciations  of  Dankirche,  urging  with  singular  per- 
tinacity the  expediency  of  dismissing  him  at  once. 

Of  course,  if  he  had  been  dismissed  prior  to  the  assassination, 
his  death  would  have  been  a  matter  to  give  them  little  con- 
cern ;  but  they  had  some  scruples,  perhaps,  in  permitting  the 
murder  of  a  servant  of  the  Legation. 

This  was  the  third  atrocious  murder  in  public  thoroughfares, 
without  brawl,  or  quarrel,  or  immediate  provocation  of  any 
kind.  Two  were  in  broad  dajHight,  and  all  evidently  deliberate 
and  planned  assassinations.  No  justice  had  been  done,  or  re- 
dress obtained,  in  any  of  the  cases.  At  midnight  two  of  the 
Governors  of  Foreign  Affairs  came  to  offer  me  their  condo- 
lences and  concert  measures,  or  seem  to  do  so.  They  indig- 
nantly repelled  the  supposition  that  the  Tycoon's  government 


Chap.  XVI.]  A  FIRE  AND  A  FUNERAL.  295 

could  not  pursue  aiid  arrest  a  Dairaio's  retainer,  or  even,  if 
needful,  liis  master.  liJuL  sndi  has  been  alleged  to  be  the  fact 
by  Ka?in|)ler  and  others.  While  discussing  this  matter,  news 
came  that  Sacagi,  the  temple  where  Monsieur  de  Bellecourt, 
the  French  Cliarge  d' Affaires,  resided,  was  on  fire ;  and  a  few 
minutes  later  the  whole  party  appeared,  the  French  Consul 
General  at  their  head.  '  Nous  voici,  nous  venons  vous  deman- 
der  de  I'hospitalite — I'incendie  nous  a  atteint !'  Then  followed 
Monsieur  I'Abbe  in  dressing-gown,  a  glass  thermometer  in  one 
hand,  which  had  been  committed  to  his  charge  by  an  absent 
friend,  and  a  breviary  in  the  other — science  and  religion  to- 
gether, and  faithful  to  both  trusts.  The  Chancelier  in  slippers 
ifbllowed,  with  a  revolver  and  a  bonnet  de  nuit,  one  in  each  hand. 
It  seemed  as  if  a  veritable  Pandora's  box  had  been  opened.  An 
assassination  in  one  Legation  and  a  fire  in  another  within  six 
hours !  My  spare  rooms  were  full,  but  we  made,  of  course,  the 
best  shift  we  could  for  our  unexpected  guests,  and  about  tliree 
o'clock  in  the  morning  we  all  retired,  sad  enough  at  heart  and 
quite  worn  out.  Verily  I  thought,  as  I  prepared  to  take  some 
rest,  this  country  on  experience  proves  to  be  something  very 
different  from  the  paradise  represented  by  recent  travelers, 
who  must  have  looked  through  very  peculiar  colored  glasses 
to  see  every  thing  so  completely '  en  beau.'  Jfeh  disposed  to 
join  in  the  prayer  of 'the  privileged  Grimkou,'  who  wrote  from 
King  Frederick  William's  savage  court,  '■JT'esp^re  que  le  bon 
Dieu  niefera  voir  uneportepour  sortir  de  cette  maudite  Go- 
UreV 

We  buried  the  poor  fellow  a  few  days  later,  and  to  mark  our 
sympathy  and  solidarite  in  such  an  outrage  to  the  flag  of  a 
Treaty  Power,  members  of  all  the  Legations,  together  with 
two  of  the  Governors  of  Foreign  Affairs,  followed  his  remains 
to  the  grave.  A  considerable  crowd  was  collected  on  the  pas- 
sage to  the  cemetery,  situated  by  the  banks  of  the  river  which 
runs  through  Yeddo,  and  at  some  distance  from  tlie  British  Le- 
gation. Arrived  at  the  temple,  the  great  bell  tolled  to  announce 
the  commencement  of  the  service.  Then  the  priests,  in  stole 
and  mitre,  or  something  strikingly  resembling  both,  took  their 
places  in  two  rows.  The  abbot,  seated  in  a  high  chair  in  the 
centre,  faced  a  temporary  altar,  on  which  tapers  and  incense 
were  burning.  A  chanted  litany  followed,  in  which  the  priests 
were  accompanied  by  the  occasional  sonorous  tones  of  two 
pairs  of  cymbals,  a  drum,  and  a  small  musical  bell.  This  con- 
tinued for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  when  the  abbot  or  superior  rose 
from  his  chair,  and,  closing  his  hands  and  eyes,  prayed  with 
great  fervor — for  the  soul  or  soirit  of  the  deoarted.  it  is  to  be 


296  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAK.  [Chap.  XVI. 

presumed.  He  then  took  off  his  curiously-shaped  head  appen- 
dages and  approached  the  altar,  burned  more  incense,  and  on 
the  spade  (of  wood)  which  was  to  turn  the  earth  being  brought 
to  him,  he  waved  it  thrice  on  every  side  and  over  the  incense, 
to  consecrate  it.  Then  followed  another  litany,  and,  with  a 
clash  of  the  cymbals  and  a  double  beat  of  the  gong  and  drum, 
the  ceremony  was  over,  and  its  termination  formally  announced 
by  the  Superior  crossing  the  temple  to  where  I  stood,  and  mak- 
ing me  a  lowly  reverence.  The  coffin  was  then  carried  to  the 
grave  and  lowered  into  it  by  the  attendants,  while  two  of  the 
priests  brought  a  tablet  with  the  name  of  the  dead  inscribed 
upon  it. 

Four  white  lanterns  were  placed  at  the  head  and  foot,  the 
earth  shoveled  in — '  earth  to  earth,  dust  to  dust' — and  the  mur- 
dered man  was  left  to  his  rest  in  Japanese  soil.  Long  as  he 
had  been  in  Christian  countries,  he  had  never  entered  into  any 
communion,  as  he  had  himself  declared  but  a  few  days  before 
his  death.  He  had  Prayer-books  and  Bibles  given  him  by  many 
missionaries  in  China  and  elsewhere,  but  never  seemed  to  have 
accepted  any  faith ;  in  this  taking  too  much  after  the  class  he 
least  loved,  the  Yaconins  and  officials.  That  he  should  be  bur- 
ied as  he  had  lived,  therefore,  with  the  rights  and  usages  of  his 
own  land,  was  the  only  natural  course  to  follow ;  and  if  deco- 
rum and  impressiveness  could  give  any  value  to  a  funeral  serv- 
ice, there  was  nothing  wanting  in  this.  It  was  impossible  for 
a  Protestant  not  to  be  struck  with  the  outward  similarity  be- 
tween the  ceremonial  of  this  Buddhist  burial  with  those  of  the 
Greek  and  Roman  churches.  The  altar,  the  tapers,  the  incense, 
the  very  costume  and  gestures  of  the  priests,  were  in  many  strik- 
ing particulars  alike — a  resemblance  too  close  to  have  been  for- 
tuitous ;  but  whence  the  seeming  identity  is  yet  a  question,  and 
one  which  I  do  not  pretend  to  discuss.  The  Japanese  received 
Buddhism  fi*om  China  in  the  sixth  century,  and  then,  or  at 
some  later  date,  may  have  got  some  of  these  forms.  As  the 
body  was  carried  out  of  the  temple  to  the  grave,  two  white 
doves,  suddenly  liberated,  circled  round  and  flew  up  into  the 
cloudless  sky,  intended  apparently  as  symbols  of  the  flight  of 
the  spirit,  but  why  two  instead  of  one  I  could  never  get  satis- 
factorily explained. 

Returning  from  the  cemet'ery,  which  the  Japanese  govern- 
ment, w  ith  considerate  prevision,  had  urged  me  to  decide  upon, 
not  only  in  reference  to  this  one  burial,  but '  for  the  decent  in- 
terment of  all  who  might  hereafter  follow'  (in  the  course  of 
nature  it  is  to  be  hoped  they  meant),  I  could  not  help  reflect- 
ing on  the  curious  spectacle  the  procession  and  burial  had  pre- 


Chap.  XVI.]  TREATIES  IN  ABEYANCE.  297 

sented  in  this  long-sealed  capital  of  a  jealously  secluded  people 
and  empire.  How  swiftly  events  had  crowded  upon  them  since 
Commodore  Perry's  first  visit  and  treaty  in  1854.  Not  six 
years,  and  yet  three  ports  were  opened,  and  many  successive 
treaties  had  bt.-en  entered  into.  At  this  moment  three  Foreign 
Representatives  had  their  residence  in  the  midst  of  the  people, 
not  half  reconciled  yet  to  this  sudden  and  total  change  in  tlieir 
relations  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  of  which  the  murdered 
man  just  followed  to  tlie  grave  was  but  too  grievous  a  proof. 
The  head  of  a  Diplomatic  Mission  in  such  a  country,  to  a 
great  degree  isolated,  and  unsupported  by  any  of  the  material 
means  of  enforcing  respect  or  good  faith,  has,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted, an  arduous  and  trying  post  at  all  times ;  but  under 
such  circumstances  as  these,  when  his  servants  are  openly 
struck  down  at  his  gate,  where  they  had  often  before  been 
wantonly  insulted  by  these  disorderly  retainers  of  Daimios, 
who  ai-e  themselves  in  a  great  degree  above  the  law,  it  is  hard 
to  say  in  what  direction  efforts  can  be  made  to  any  purpose ! 
Every  day  seemed  to  furnish  evidence  of  the  futility  of  any  ar- 

fuments  addressed  to  their  sense  of  justice  or  their  good  faith, 
till,  it  was  within  the  domain  of  diplomacy.  Indeed,  there 
could  be  no  question  of  compulsion  or  force ;  for,  with  five 
Treaty  Powers,  not  one  of  these  permanently  maintained  a  ship 
of  war  at  Yeddo,  or  on  the  station  even,  though  one  under  the 
British  flag  appeared  from  time  to  time.  Sometimes,  as  I  have 
said,  for  weeks  not  a  pendant  was  seen  in  the  waters.  It  is 
true,  the  mercantile  interests  in  existence  hitherto  had  not 
been  large,  but  neither  could  they  ever  become  so  unless  the 
provisions  of  treaties  should  he  better  carried  out ;  and  the  ex- 
perience of  the  past  six  months  held  out  little  promise  of  the 
Japanese  government,  of  its  own  free  will,  taking  the  necessary 
steps,  if  they  saw  that  a  deliberate  system  of  obstruction  and 
bad  faith  might  be  pursued  without  risk  or  damage.  If  such 
were  to  be  the  permanent  state  of  our  relations,  it  had  per- 
haps been  better,  and,  upon  the  whole,  more  satisfactory  to  all 
parties,  to  have  left  the  Japanese  to  their  much-prized  isolation, 
mstead  of  putting  a  constraint  upon  them  to  open  their  ports, 
and  then  leaving  them  to  their  own  devices.  But  this  came, 
in  part  at  least,  of  the  too  flattering  opinions  entertained  by 
those  who  accompanied  the  first  negotiators  of  treaties.  Ac- 
cording to  the  clear-sighted  travelers  who,  upon  a  ten  days'  or 
ten  weeks'  experience,  dashed  off  a  florid  picture  of 'Paradise 
Regained,'  of  bliss  and  iimocence,  which  unfortunately  existed 
only  in  their  own  imaginations,  and  pronounced  a  favorable 
judgment  on  the  character  and  government  of  a  whole  people, 

N2 


298  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XVI. 

*The  Japanese  rulers  were  only  too  happy  to  enter  into  ami- 
cable relations  with  Foreign  Powers,  and,  though  a  little  timid 
(the  result  of  inexperience  and  innocence),  were  most  anxious 
to  carry  out  all  the  pi'ovisions  of  treaties  with  scrupulous  fidel- 
ity !'  One  looked  in  vain,  at  this  time,  for  any  trace  of  these 
desirable  dispositions,  and  could  only  wonder  upon  what  found- 
ation such  superstructures  had  been  reared.  To  all  appear- 
ance, that '  forward  delusive  faculty,'  as  Bishop  Butler  styles 
the  '  imagination,'  has  much  to  answer  for  in  respect  to  Ja- 
pan. A  more  systematic  or  determined  policy  of  obstruction 
and  passive  resistance  combined,  than  that  which  the  Gov- 
ernment had  perseveringly  adhered  to,  could  not  be  conceived. 
And  never  were  solemn  treaties  and  the  most  indisputable 
rights  of  nations  set  aside  on  more  futile  and  puerile  pretexts! 
Either  the  treaties  themselves  were  a  mistake,  and  the  whole 
policy  they  were  intended  to  inaugurate,  or  the  means  since 
taken  by  the  Western  Powers  to  make  them  something  more 
than  waste  paper  had  been  hardly  calculated  to  attain  the  de- 
sired end.  Japan  seemed  fast  learning  a  lesson  she  would  un- 
doubtedly be  slow  to  forget,  that  the  Western  Powers,  notwith- 
standing the  eagerness  and  determination  they  show  to  make 
treaties  with  a  new  country,  are  little  disposed  to  take  the 
necessary  steps  to  cause  them  to  be  respected.  And  if  they 
should  come  to  the  conclusion,  based  upon  a  certain  experi- 
ence, that  every  obligation  contracted  may  he  systematically 
evaded  with  impunity — if  only  such  evasion  be  carried  on  un- 
der cover  of  professions  of  amity  and  good  faith — it  will  be 
hard  to  get  any  substantial  advantage  ont  of  treaties.  The 
Japanese  have  no  confidence  or  trust  in  Foreign  Powers  or 
their  subjects  (they  certainly,  if  truth  must  be  told,  have  little 
reason  to  admire  many  of  the  first  pioneers  of  Western  civil- 
ization and  commerce  flung  on  their  shores),  and  if  no  steps 
are  to  be  taken  to  alter  this  state  of  things,  then  it  would  cer- 
tainly seem  a  grievous  mistake  to  have  entered  into  any  treaty 
relations  with  them !  For  where  there  is  no  confidence  be- 
tween one  nation  and  another,  there  can  be  no  alliance  worth 
preserving;  and  assuredly  where  truth  and  justice  are  wanton- 
ly violated,  there  can  be  no  confidence.  That  reflections  such 
as  these  should  present  themselves  at  this  time  will  scarcely  be 
matter  of  surprise.  It  is  never  wise,  however,  to  take  too  de- 
spondent a  view  of  affairs,  either  national  or  private,  and  I  re- 
flected that  it  was  yet  early  days.  Undoubtedly  the  Japanese 
were  inexperienced  in  foreign  relations,  while  the  traditions  of 
those  which  existed  in  past  generations  were  only  calculated 
to  suggest  doubt  and  mistrust.    Something  might  fairly  be  put 


Chap.  XVI.]        PAST  AND  FUTURE.— A  RUMOR.  299 

down  to  their  utter  ignorance  of  all  the  conditions  by  which 
profitable  and  friendly  intercourse  is  to  be  maintained  with 
other  nations.  Then,  again,  the  currency  had  been  a  great  dif- 
ficulty, and  an  obstacle  in  the  way  of  all  satisfactory  commer- 
cial relations.*  The  Government,  once  more,  as  in  days  of  old, 
under  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  regime,  had  seen  with  an- 
ger and  alarm  their  gold  shipped  away,  never  to  return.  But 
that  danger  removed  (by  the  reduction  of  the  gold  and  silver 
to  the  European  standard),  there  was  some  hope  of  the  irrita- 
tion and  alarm  subsiding  with  the  cause. 

With  this  glimpse  of  a  brighter  dawn  I  was  fain  to  be  con- 
tent, and  conclude,  in  respect  to  trade  and  its  future  prospects 
in  Japan,  that,  as  Burns  wrote  to  Gavin  Hamilton  of  a  very 
different  matter, 

'  It  may  do  weel,  for  aught  it's  done  yet, 
But  only — it's  no  just  begun  yet. ' 

111  -  omened  and  bloodstained,  the  month  of  January  had 
passed  away,  and  we  were  already  far  into  February  without 
any  very  new  or  startling  incident  to  make  an  epoch  in  our 
otherwise  monotonous  existence,  when  a  message  came  to  my 
colleague,  the  Minister  of  the  United  States,  to  request  he 
would  not  leave  his  home  because  the  presents  from  the  Mika- 
do to  the  Tycoon  would  be  passing.  I  was  happy  not  to  re- 
ceive a  similar  message,  as  on  the  last  occasion  the  Governors 
charged  with  its  delivery  had  been  somewhat  curtly  answered. 
Once  acceded  to,  they  would  soon  have  found  a  pretext  for 
shutting  us  up  in  our  houses  350  days  out  of  the  365,  much  as 
the  Tycoon  himself  was  !  A  day  or  two  later,  I  received  inti- 
mation from  Mr.  Harris  that  it  had  just  been  reported  to  him 
fifty  men  had  been  seized  the  night  before  by  the  police,  it  hav- 
ing been  discovered  that  they  had  gone  down  to  Yokohama  to 
murder  all  the  foreigners.  There  was,  perhaps,  little  or  no 
foundation  for  tlie  rumor,  and  no  truth  in  the  alleged  seizure, 
but  such  rumors  were  much  too  frequently  in  circulation  to  be 
pleasant,  or  wholly  without  significance.  I  think  it  was  about 
this  time  that  the  Abbe  Girard,  attached  to  the  French  Lega- 
tion, was  returning  to  Yeddo  from  Kanagawa,  and  seated  out- 
side a  tea-house  while  his  horse  was  being  fed,  when  a  two- 
sworded  individual  came  up  to  him,  and, finding  he  could  speak 
Japanese,  said  to  him, '  You  know  you  are  all  to  be  killed  V 

*  Owinp  in  some  measure,  no  donht,  to  the  unprecedented  clause  in  all  the 
treaties — first  introdnccd  in  the  American — that  all  foreipn  pold  and  silver 
coins  should  frrcly  circulnte  in  Jxpan,  .ind  be  exchangeable  with  Jajianese 
coin,  wei<;ht  for  weight,  without  reference  to  the  totally  diflerent  rate  of  val- 
ue, as  by  law  established  in  Japan,  between  their  gold  and  silver. 


300  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XVI. 

The  abbe,  treating  it  rather  as  a  jest,  replied, '  No,  really — 
when,  then  ?'  '  When  ?  soon — in  a  single  night !'  Cut  off 
from  all  reliable  means  of  information  by  the  Japanese  author- 
ities, such  sinister  intimations  as  these  strike  unpleasantly  on 
the  ear,  since  who  can  tell  whether  there  be  any  real  founda- 
tion or  not  ? 

While  thus  speculating  on  our  actual  position,  day  after  day 
bringing  nothing  reassuring,  we  approached  the  end  of  Febru- 
ary. On  the  26th  I  was  roused  from  my  sleep  at  four  o'clock 
in  the  morning  by  the  arrival  of  an  express  from  H.  M.  Consul 
at  Kanagawa,  with  intelligence  that  about  eight  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  two  captains  of  Dutch  mei'chant  vessels  in  the  harbor 
had  been  slain  in  the  main  street  of  Yokohama — a  repetition, 
in  all  its  leading  circumstances  and  unprovoked  barbarity,  of 
the  assassination  perpetrated  on  the  Russians.  They  had  been 
set  upon  in  the  dark,  and  head  and  limbs  had  nearly  been  sev- 
ered from  their  bodies,  as  though  butchers  had  assailed  them 
with  their  cleavers.  One  had  his  shoulder  nearly  cut  through, 
besides  gashes  across  head,  face,  and  chest,  any  one  of  which 
must  have  been  fatal.  The  second  appears  to  have  seized  the 
sword  with  his  left  hand,  which,  drawn  through  his  grasp,  had 
severed  three  of  the  fingers  ;  and,  still  struggling,  he  must 
have  warded  off  the  next  blow  at  his  head  with  his  right  hand, 
and  run  nearly  a  hundred  steps  from  his  butchers,  as  the  hand 
was  found  at  that  distance  from  his  body.  He  also  was  fright- 
fully mangled.  Where  was  this  to  end  ?  This  was  the  fourth 
assassination  in  eight  months,  and  six  lives  had  been  ruthlessly 
sacrificed.  First  a  Russian  ofiicer  and  servant,  next  a  servant 
of  the  Consul  of  France,  then  my  linguist  (both  slain  in  open 
day),  now  two  Dutch  captains. 

I  saw  the  Ministers  of  Foreign  Affairs  a  few  hours  later, 
heard  the  usual  expressions  of  regret,  and  assurances  of  efforts 
to  trace  the  assassins,  meaning  nothing,  and  with  almost  a 
certainty  that  nothing  would  be  done.  I  felt  bound  to  tell 
their  Excellencies  that  a  government  so  deficient,  either  in  the 
power  or  the  will  to  secure  life  and  property  in  the  country, 
was  one  with  which  it  was  difiicult,  and  might  become  impos- 
sible, to  maintain  any  treaty  relations. 

'  Yet  had  they  not  taken  all  the  measures  that  could  be  con- 
ceived ?  Did  I,  then,  give  them  no  credit  for  the  exertions 
made?' 

My  reply  was  in  substance  that  '  I  could  not  say  what  meas- 
ures they  had  taken.  I  could  only  judge  by  the  results,  and 
these  were  nil^  while  the  assassins  were  at  large  and  unpunish- 
ed ;  nothing  had  been  done.     So  long  as  they  could  neither 


Chap. XVI.]      WHAT  IS  A  LIFE  WORTH?— FIRE.  30I 

prevent  crime  nor  punish  it,  there  could  be  no  security  for  life, 
and  without  that  there  could  be  no  stable  relations  either  of 
trade  or  amity.' 

It  seemed  very  hopeless!  Russian  sailors  were  drunk  on 
shore,  I  believe,  during  tlie  day — unfortunately  too  common 
an  incident  wherever  sailors  of  any  nation  get  leave.  Thus, 
the  very  men  of  war  that  should  be  a  protection,  become  a 
new  source  of  danger.  Whether  this  last  murder  was  a  mere 
wanton  brutality — vengeance  for  some  offense — or  with  a  po- 
litical object,  we  shall  never  know.  Rumor  said  the  latter ; 
and  in  any  case,  the  two  victims  were  unoffending;  one  was 
an  old  man  upward  of  sixty. 

And  where  was  the  remedy?  What  could  be  done?  Even 
such  successive  acts  of  assassination  did  not  form  a  casus  belli, 
nor  were  we  prepared  to  make  war.  Still  less  were  we  so 
disposed.  Nothing,  indeed,  could  be  farther  from  the  desire 
either  of  the  Government  or  the  nation  at  home  than  a  war 
with  the  Japanese.  The  one  little  ship  sent  to  the  station,  it 
was  hoped, '  might  be  dispensed  with  during  the  operations  in 
the  north  of  China,'  that  is,  for  three  or  four  months  probably  I 
To  demand  a  heavy  indemnity  for  the  surviving  families  seem- 
ed the  only  practical  means  of  inducing  serious  effort  on  the 
part  of  the  Government.  If  a  life  cost  them  $50,000,  they 
would  probably  be  at  some  pains  to  prevent  its  loss.  Their 
hearts  or  consciences  it  seemed  diflScult  to  touch;  the  only- 
thing  remaining  was  to  try  their  pockets.  It  might  appear 
very  dignified  to  say,  as  Count  Mouravieff  did, '  Russia  did  not 
sell  the  blood  of  her  subjects;'  but  then  they  should  have  been 
avenged — made  costly  in  some  way  to  those  who  sat  supinely 
by  and  allowed  them  to  be  sacrificed. 

Another  month  of  the  eventful  year  had  passed;  it  was  al- 
ready the  first  of  March  as  I  sat  finishing  a  mail  for  Hakodadi. 
Midnight  had  arrived,  and  I  was  about  to  forget,  if  I  could, 
my  daily  troubles  and  anxieties  in  sleep,  when  the  discordant 
clang  of  the  alarm-bells  broke  sharp  and  clear  on  the  stillness 
of  the  night,  calling  the  population  from  their  beds  to  look  to 
their  own  safety,  and,  if  needful,  help  to  extinguish  the  fire 
of  their  neighbors.  It  seemed  as  if  few  nights  passed  over 
without  a  fire  in  some  quarter  or  other  of  this  ill-fated  city, 
often  destroying  whole  streets.  How  should  it  be  otherwise 
— all  wood  and  no  water !  One  or  two  bells  only  at  first  were 
heard,  then  soon  the  note  of  alarm  was  taken  up  by  others. 
A  fierce  gale  was  raging,  and  grievous  destruction  of  property, 
if  not  of  life,  was  inevitable.  The  servants  told  us  it  was  about 
three  miles  off,  but,  the  wind  blowing  in  our  direction,  they 


302  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XVI. 

seemed  to  think  it  might  even  reach  us  at  Tozengee !  Scarce 
a  day  or  night  passed  without  some  alarm  of  the  kind,  and 
often  tlie  melancholy  tocsin  was  heard  more  than  once  in  the 
twenty-four  hours.  They  are  miserably  deficient  in  the  first 
great  element  of  safety,  water.  By  law  a  tub  of  water  is  kept 
at  every  door,  and  buckets  are  often  seen  on  the  roofs  of  the 
houses,  but  they  have  no  supply  beyond  what  their  wells  af- 
ford. In  other  respects  they  seem  to  have  a  well-organized 
system  of  rousing  the  people,  and  giving  information  even  as 
to  the  place,  or  at  least  the  direction  and  distance  of  the  fire. 
If  it  be  a  long  way  oflf,  a  single  stroke  is  repeated  at  short  in- 
tervals ;  if  nearer,  but  not  in  the  immediate  neighborhood,  it 
is  one,  two,  and  then  a  pause ;  but  if  the  whole  quarter  and 
people  are  to  be  roused  to  aid  on  the  spot,  it  is  one,  and  then 
a  sharp  second,  and  third,  repeated  loud  and  quick  in  contin- 
ued succession.  There  is  something  very  disturbing  in  this 
combination  of  earthquakes  and  perpetually  recurring  confla- 
grations, the  latter  destroying  hundreds  or  even  thousands  of 
houses  in  a  few  hours.  Both  often  arouse  you  from  your  sleep, 
with  a  most  uncomfortable  sense  of  insecurity. 

I  am  free  to  confess  my  dislike  of  earthquakes  increases 
with  each  visitation  ;  I  can  not  say  '  familiarity  breeds  con- 
tempt.' You  are  sitting  quietly  at  your  table,  or,  with  a  book 
in  your  hand,  seeking  very  likely  to  forget  your  own  thoughts, 
or  actual  existence  in  those  of  others,  when  your  chair  begins 
to  vibrate,  at  first  gently,  as  if  merely  to  rouse  your  attention  ; 
then  the  ground  under  your  feet  catches  the  contagion,  and 
you  feel  there  is  an  earthquake  to  meet  with  what  courage 
you  may.  Will  it  bring  the  house  down  over  your  head? 
Open  a  chasm  to  bury  you  in  its  depths?  Or  merely  make 
you  feel  as  though  you,  not  the  earth  below,  had  been  taken 
with  an  ague-fit  ?  Who  can  tell  ?  Who  knows  any  thing  of 
the  law  of  earthquakes?  In  the  mean  time,  while  these  com- 
fortable reflections  flash  through  your  mind  —  as  in  moments 
of  danger  a  whole  chapter  of  accidents  and  dilemmas  will  oc- 
casionally crowd  themselves,  without  the  slightest  regard  to 
time  or  fitness — the  vibration  continues  in  spasmodic  intermit- 
tence,  diminishes,  then  again  recommences  with  greater  vio- 
lence—  all  the  beams  and  rafters  groan  and  creak,  the  house 
swaying  with  a  very  perceptible  movement  under  each  shock ! 
Will  it  come  down  or  not  ?  The  question  is  intei-esting  and 
important ;  for  on  your  giving  a  right  answer  and  acting  ac- 
cordingly, issues  in  life  and  eternityniay  depend,  and  yet  you 
know  no  more  than  the  trembling  dog  at  your  feet  what  are 
the  chance  and  probabilities,     Some  take  what  they  conceive 


Chap.XVI.]       contrasts  and  discordances.  303 

the  safer  course  under  all  cinumstances, and  whether  up  or  in 
bed,  dressed  or  undressed,  rush  out  ot'tlie  house  into  the  street 
or  some  open  space.  But  what  can  assure  them  that  the  pre- 
cise spot  they  choose  for  safety  may  not,  the  instant  they  reach 
it,  sink  beneath  them  with  a  horrible  crash,  and  precipitate 
them  into  depths  unfathomable  of  molten  lava  ?  So  far  as  I 
myself  am  concerned,  I  feel  like  a  man  on  a  field  of  battle  in 
the  thick  of  the  fight,  with  round  shot  and  missiles  of  death 
flying  in  every  direction.  Who  but  the  novice  ever  thinks  of 
ducking  his  head  or  trying  to  dodge  them  ?  The  hopelessness 
of  the  attempt  insensibly  steadies  his  nerves.  Not  knowing 
in  the  least,  or  able  in  the  slightest  degree  to  divine  what  is 
to  follow  from  moment  to  moment,  I  feel  so  entirely  helpless 
before  destructive  forces  of  which  I  can  neither  measure  the 
length,  nor  depth,  nor  height  while  yet  in  the  hands  of  a  Pow- 
er '  able  to  save,'  that  I  seem  to  lack  all  impulse  or  desire  to 
make  any  sudden  eifort  to  reach  the  open  space,  which,  for 
aught  I  can  tell,  may  be,  after  all,  the  most  dangerous  place 
within  reach! 

'  Weeping  may  endure  for  a  night,  but  joy  cometh  in  the 
morning,'  says  the  Psalmist,  as  though  to  warn  us  that  even  to 
sorrow,  and  danger,  and  trouble,  or  any  other  evil  that  can  af- 
flict us,  there  is  a  limit,  and  joy  may  yet  succeed,  as  morning 
succeeds  to  night.  Therefore  should  we  strive  on  and  hope, 
not  faint  or  despair.  So  daylight  came  to  us  in  Yeddo  after 
nights  of  fires,  and  murders,  and  earthquakes.  As  I  rode  into 
the  country  the  next  day,  not  even  a  mounted  escort  of  Yaco- 
nins,  which  the  Foreign  Representatives  had  at  last,  and  very 
reluctantly  (I  can  answer  at  least  for  myself),  accepted  at  the 
earnest  requisition  of  the  Japanese  Ministers,  could  wholly  mar 
the  beauty  of  the  country,  bright  and  fresh  in  all  the  vernal 
honors  of  spring.  In  the  midst  of  death,  and  alarms  of  massa- 
cre, with  interludes  of  fires  and  earthquakes,  spring  was  smil- 
ing upon  us.  The  peach-trees  were  bursting  into  blossom,  and 
the  air  each  day  was  becoming  more  genial.  What  strange 
contrasts  and  discordances  between  the  sunny  clime  and  beau- 
tiful country,  in  ever-varying  hue  and  form  as  far  as  the  eye 
could  reach,  and  the  deeds  which  were  done  in  the  land !  On 
the  11th  of  March,  I  find  it  noted,  in  a  brief  diary  of  dates  and 
occurrences,  that  I  went  to  the  American  Legation  to  attend 
the  first  Protestant  service  ever  performed  in  Yeddo.  An 
American  missionary  ofiiciated,  and,  out  of  courtesy  to  the 
British  Minister,  I  presume,  since  he  was  not  an  Episcopalian 
of  either  Church,  our  service  was  read.  The  members  of  the 
two  Legations,  and  the  American  Consul  from  Kanagawa,  nine 


804  'THREE  YEAllS  JH  JAPAN.  IChjlP.  XVIl. 

persons  in  all,  formed  the  whole  congregation ;  but  where  'two 
or  three  are  gathered  together,'  we  are  assured  that  He  in 
whose  name  they  pray  will  be  with  them,  and  in  that  faith  we 
met  in  this  pagan  city,  teeming  with  hostile  elements  to  us  and 
our  faith.  We  had  no  chaplain  of  our  own,  or  medical  officer 
either,  in  the  establishment  as  originally  organized.  To  attend 
a  religious  service  of  any  kind,  therefore,  formed  a  sort  of  ep- 
och among  the  Legations.  It  would  have  been  difficult,  per- 
haps, to  find  a  post  in  the  whole  range  of  diplomatic  or  consu- 
lar appointments  where  both  were  more  likely  to  be  needed  in 
extremis.  But  it  has  well  been  said, '  In  the  field  of  life  (in 
diplomacy  as  in  war)  there  must  occasionally  be  dangerous 
work  to  do,  and  somebody  must  do  it,  whatever  be  the  disad- 
vantages of  position,  or  shortcomings  in  the  provision  made  by 
anticipation  to  meet  it.' 


CHAPTER  XVH. 


Murder  of  the  Regent  on  his  Way  to  the  Tycoon's  Palace.  —  Narrative  of 
what  took  Place. — General  Alarm  and  Sense  of  Insecurity. — The  Legations 
surrounded  by  Japanese  Guards  for  their  Protection  from  Attack. — The 
Times  of  the  Guelfs  and  Ghibelines  resuscitated. — Subsequent  Acts  of  the 
Conspirators,  and  how  they  disposed  of  the  Regent's  Head. — Popular  Sto- 
ries and  Legends.  —  Story  of  the  forty-seven  Lonins.  —  Influence  of  such 
Literature  and  Hero-worship  on  the  Morality  and  Actions  of  the  People. 

The  rising  settlement  of  Yokohama  had  already  spread  over 
a  considerable  area — all,  indeed,  that  the  foreign  merchants  on 
the  spot  could  put  their  hands  upon  was  occupied,  and  new 
houses  of  substantial  character  were  taking  the  place  of  the 
flimsy  superstructures  which  had  been  run  up  in  anticipation 
by  the  Japanese  authorities.  The  actual  amount  of  business 
done,  apart  from  the  purchase  of  gold  kobangs,  was  not  great, 
and  yet  it  was  much  larger  than  had  been  anticipated  by  many. 
Some  matters  connected  with  the  locations  and  the  custom- 
house administration  had  taken  me  to  the  spot,  on  a  visit  of  a 
few  days  to  H.  M.'s  Consul  at  Kanagawa,  in  the  month  of 
March,  and,  on  my  return  to  Yeddo,  the  first  news  that  greeted 
me  as  I  entered  the  Legation  was  of  so  startling  and  incredible 
a  character  that  I  hesitated  to  believe  what  was  told  me.  The 
GoTAiRO,  or  Regent  of  the  empire,  was  said  to  have  been  set 
upon  and  assassinated  in  broad  daylight,  on  his  way  to  the  pal- 
ace, and  this,  too,  not  a  hundred  yards  from  his  own  gates,  and 
in  the  very  midst  of  a  large  retinue  of  his  retainers !     I  confess 


Chap.  XVII.]  MURDER  OF  THE  REGENT  305 

I  felt  all  the  more  indisposed  to  credit  the  intelligence  that  I 
found  the  Japanese  officials  making  great  demonstrations  of 
alarm,  and  wanting  to  quarter  half  a  dozen  armed  police  in  one 
of  my  apartments  '  for  my  protection.'  But  concurrent  infor- 
mation soon  left  no  doubt  that  some  bold  and  desperate  at- 
tempt on  his  life  had  been  made,  whether  successfully  or  not 
it  was  impossible  to  learn  with  certainty.  Some  said  he  had 
been  killed  on  the  spot,  and  his  head  carried  off;  others,  again, 
and  aU  the  official  informants^  said  he  was  alive,  and  liad  only 
been  wounded.  Their  assurances,  of  course,  went  for  very  lit- 
tle, in  such  circumstances  especially !  They  would  simply  say 
what  they  were  told  to  say ;  and  it  is  a  common  custom  in  Ja- 
pan, when  a  sovereign  or  any  one  higli  in  authority  dies,  to 
conceal  his  death  until  measui'es  have  been  taken  to  install  his 
successor,  and,  in  the  mean  time,  the  dead  man  is  merely  said 
to  be  sick.  To  my  inquiries  after  his  health,  and  offers  of  sur- 
gical aid  from  the  Legation,  the  Ministers  for  many  days  mere- 
ly returned  civil  messages,  declining  the  assistance,  and  giving 
bulletins  of  his  health,  informing  me,  truly  enough,  that '  he  was 
not  worse!'  The  real  facts  were  not  ascertained,  with  any 
guarantee  of  fidelity  as  to  the  main  incidents,  until  some  time 
later,  when  they  became  public  property  as  it  were,  and  the 
common  gossip  of  the  bath-houses,  an  institution  of  Japan  cor- 
responding to  the  cafe  in  France.  As  the  whole  history,  from 
the  beginning  to  the  end,  is  of  great  interest,  and  highly  illus- 
trative of  the  Japanese  character  and  political  condition,  I  will 
relate  it  in  a  more  connected  form  than  it  reached  me,  and  with 
all  the  corrections  supplied  by  later  acquired  knowledge,  not 
only  of  the  tragic  event  itself,  but  of  the  political  history  to 
which  it  is  attached. 

Within  the  second  moated  circle  facing  the  bay,  the  cause- 
way leads  over  a  gentle  acclivity,  near  the  summit  of  which, 
lying  a  little  backward,  is  an  imposing  gateway,  flanked  on 
either  side  with  a  range  of  buildings  which  form  the  outer 
screens  of  large  court-yards.  Over  the  gates,  in  copper  enamel, 
is  the  crest  of  the  noble  owner  (an  orange  on  a  branch  with 
three  leaves),  the  Chief  of  the  house  of  Ikoinono^  in  which  is 
vested  the  hereditary  office  of  Regent,  whenever  a  minor  fills 
the  Tycoon's  throne.  From  the  commanding  position  of  this 
residence  a  view  is  obtained  of  a  long  sweep  of  the  rampart, 
and  about  midway  the  descent  ends  in  a  long  level  line  of 
road.  Just  at  this  point,  not  five  hundred  yards  distant,  is  one 
of  the  three  bridges  across  the  moat  wliich  leads  into  the  in- 
ner inc'losure,  where  the  castle  of  the  Tycoon  is  situated.  It 
was  about  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  March  24,  while  a 


306  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  fCnAP.  XVII. 

Storm  of  alternate  sleet  and  rain  swept  over  the  exposed  road 
and  open  space,  offering  little  inducements  to  mere  idlers  to 
be  abroad,  that  a  train  was  seen  to  emerge  from  the  gateway 
of  the  Gotairo's  residence.  The  appearance  of  the  cortege  was 
sufficient  to  tell  those  familiar  with  Japanese  habits  and  cus- 
toms that  the  Regent  himself  was  in  the  midst,  on  his  Avay  to 
the  palace,  where  his  daily  duties  called  him.  Although  the 
numbers  were  inconsiderable,  and  all  the  attendants  were  en- 
veloped in  their  rain-proof  cloaks  of  oiled  paper,  with  great  cir- 
cular hats  of  basket  or  lacker  tied  to  their  head,  yet  the  two 
standard-bearers  bore  aloft  at  the  end  of  their  spears  the  black 
tuft  of  feathers  distinctive  of  a  Daimio,  and  always  marking 
his  presence.  A  small  company  of  officers  and  personal  at- 
tendants walk  in  front  and  round  the  foremost  norimon,  while 
a  troop  of  inferior  office-bearers  follow  —  grooms  with  led 
horses,  extra  norimon-bearers,  baggage  porters — for  no  officer, 
much  less  a  Daimio,  ever  leaves  his  house  without  a  train  of 
baggage ;  empty  or  full,  they  are  essential  to  his  dignity.  Then 
there  are  umbrella-bearers,  and  the  servants  of  servants  along 
the  line.  The  cortege  slowly  wound  its  way  down  the  hill,  for 
the  roads  were  wet  and  muddy  even  on  this  high  ground ; 
while  the  bearers  were  blinded  with  the  drifting  sleet,  which 
was  carefully  excluded  only  from  the  norimons  by  closed 
screens.  Thus  suspended  in  a  sort  of  cage,  just  large  enough 
to  permit  a  man  to  sit  cross-legged,  the  principal  personage 
proceeded  on  his  way  to  the  palace.  Little,  it  would  seem,  did 
either  he  or  his  men  dream  of  possible  danger.  How  should 
they,  indeed,  on  such  a  spot,  and  for  so  exalted  a  personage  ? 
No  augur  or  soothsayer,  it  seems,  gave  warning  to  beware  of 
the  '  Ides  of  March.'  And  Ikomono-no-kami,  had  he  no  secret 
misgiving,  no  presentiment  of  impending  danger,  such  as  men 
devoted  to  destruction  are  believed  to  have  had  on  so  many 
occasions  ?  There  is  a  Scottish  superstition,  that  when  the 
shadow  of  death  is  closing  round,  the  mighty  one  is  permitted 
to  touch  those  he  is  about  to  grasp,  so  that,  unconsciously  to 
themselves,  they  are  warned  to  make  their  peace  with  men  be- 
fore departing  on  their  lonely  road.  But  he  left  his  own  gate- 
way, having  but  a  few  yards  to  go — the  foremost  man  in  the 
realm,  surrounded  by  his  own  people — nothing  doubting,  noth- 
ing fearing — and  before  his  bearers  could  set  foot  on  the  bridge 
the  vengeful  steel  was  at  his  throat.  Death  stands  there  across 
the  path,  a  fatal  mandate  in  his  grasp ;  but  still  the  procession 
moves  on  in  careless  ease.  The  edge  of  the  moat  is  gained. 
A  still  larger  cortege  of  the  Prince  of  Kiusiu,  one  of  the  royal 
brothers,  was  already  on  the  bridge  and  passing  through  the 


Chap.  XVn.]         NARRATIVE  OP  THE  EVENT.  307 

gate  on  the  opposite  side,  wliile  coming  up  from  the  causeway 
at  a  few  paces  distant  was  the  retinue  of  a  second  of  these 
brothers,  the  Prince  of  Owari.  The  Gotairo  was  thus  between 
them  at  the  foot  of  the  bridge,  in  the  open  space  formed  by  the 
meeting  of  a  broad  street,  which  debouches  on  the  bridge.  A 
few  straggling  groups,  enveloped  in  their  oil-paper  cloaks, 
alone  were  near ;  when  suddenly  one  of  these  seeming  idlers 
flung  himself  across  the  line  of  march,  immediately  in  front  of 
the  Regent's  norimon.  The  ofiicers  of  his  household,  whose 
place  is  on  each  side  of  him,  rushed  forward  at  this  unprece- 
dented interruption — a  fatal  move,  which  had  evidently  been 
anticipated,  for  their  place  was  instantly  filled  with  armed  men 
in  coats  of  mail,  who  seemed  to  have  sprung  from  the  earth — 
a  compact  band  of  some  eighteen  or  twenty  men.  With  flash- 
ing swords  and  frightful  yells,  blows  were  struck  at  all  around, 
the  lightest  of  which  severed  men's  hands  from  the  poles  of 
the  norimon,  and  cut  down  those  who  did  not  flee.  Brief  and 
deadly  was  the  struggle.  The  unhappy  ofiicers  and  attend- 
ants, thus  taken  by  surprise,  were  hampered  with  their  rain- 
gear,  and  many  fell  before  they  could  draw  a  sword  to  defend 
either  themselves  or  their  lord.  A  few  seconds  must  have 
done  the  work,  so  more  than  one  looker-on  declared ;  and  be- 
fore any  thought  of  rescue  seemed  to  have  come  to  the  attend- 
ants and  escorts  of  the  two  other  Princes,  both  very  near — if, 
indeed,  they  were  total  strangers  to  what  was  passing — one 
of  the  band  was  seen  to  dash  along  the  causeway  with  a  gory 
trophy  in  his  hand.  Many  had  fallen  in  the  melee  on  both 
sides.  Two  of  the  assailants,  who  were  badly  wounded,  find- 
ing escape  impossible,  it  is  said,  stopped  in  their  flight,  and  de- 
liberately penormed  the  Hara-kiru,  to  the  edification  of  their 
pursuers ;  for  it  seems  to  be  the  law  (so  sacred  is  the  rite,  or 
right,  whichever  may  be  the  proper  reading)  that  no  one  may 
be  interrupted  even  for  the  ends  of  justice.  These  are  held  to 
be  sufficiently  secured  by  the  self-immolation  of  the  criminal, 
however  heinous  the  offense,  and  it  is  a  privilege  to  be  denied 
to  no  one  entitled  to  wear  two  swords !  Other  accounts  say 
that  their  companions,  as  a  last  act  of  friendship,  dispatched 
the  wounded,  to  prevent  them  falling  into  the  hands  of  the 
torturer,  and  revealing  what  they  knew.  Eight  of  the  assail- 
ants were  unaccounted  for  when  all  was  over,  and  many  of  the 
retinue  were  stretched  on  the  ground  wounded  and  dying  by 
the  side  of  those  who  had  made  the  murderous  onslaught.  The 
remnant  of  the  Regent's  people,  released  from  their  deadly 
struggle,  turned  to  the  norimon  to  see  how  it  had  fared  with 
their  master  in  the  brief  interval,  to  find  only  a  headless  trunk ! 


308  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  fCHAP.XVIt 

The  bleeding  trophy  carried  away  was  supposed  to  have  been 
the  head  of  the  Gotairo  himself,  hacked  oft'  on  the  spot.  But 
strangest  of  all  these  startling  incidents,  it  is  farther  related 
that  tico  heads  were  found  missing,  and  that  which  was  seen 
in  the  fugitive's  hand  was  only  a  lure  to  the  pursuing  party, 
while  the  true  trophy  had  been  secreted  on  the  person  of  an- 
other, and  was  thus  successfully  carried  ofl",  though  the  decoy 
paid  the  penalty  of  his  life.  After  leading  the  chase  through 
a  first  gateway  down  the  road,  and  dashing  past  the  useless 
guard,  he  was  finally  overtaken  and  slain,  the  end  for  which 
he  had  devoted  himself  having,  however,  been  accomplished. 
Whether  this  be  merely  a  popular  version  of  the  simple  truth, 
it  serves  to  prove  what  is  believed  to  be  a  likely  course  of  ac- 
tion, and  how  ready  desperate  men  are  in  Japan  to  sacrifice 
their  lives  deliberately  in  a  feud,  their  own  or  their  chief's. 
The  oflScer  in  command  of  the  gate  who  had  allowed  his  post 
to  be  forced  was  ordered  the  next  day  to  perform  the  Hara- 
kiru  on  the  spot.  All  Yeddo  was  thrown  into  commotion. 
The  ward  gates  were  closed ;  the  whole  machinery  of  the  Gov- 
ernment in  spies,  police,  and  soldiers,  was  put  in  motion ;  and 
in  a  few  days  it  was  generally  believed  that  the  whole  of  the 
missing  assassins  were  arrested,  and  in  the  hands  of  the  tor- 
turer; although  this  subsequently  was  denied  by  the  Minis- 
ters, and  the  non-apprehension  of  the  murderers  was  quoted  as 
a  justification  for  similar  want  of  success  in  tracing  the  several 
parties  engaged  in  the  assassination  of  foreigners.  What  rev- 
elations were  wrung  from  them,  or  whether  they  were  enabled 
to  resist  the  utmost  strain  that  could  be  put  on  quivering  flesh 
and  nerve,  remains  shrouded  in  mystery.  The  officers  of  the 
Government  intimated  at  the  Legation  that  they  had  revealed 
all,  confessing  they  were  in  the  service  of  the  Prince  of  Mito ; 
but  the  popular  version,  as  shown  in  an  ingenious  rebus,  was 
more  heroic.  The  Chinese  chai*acters  representing  the  Goro- 
gio  (Council  of  Ministers)  was  circulated,  omitting  certain  por- 
tions, which,  taken  separately,  signify  a  mouth ;  and  the  whole 
was  made  to  signify  that  the  answers  and  heroism  of  the  tor- 
tured men  had  closed  the  mDuths  of  the  Council. 

Thus,  in  broad  daylight,  within  sight  of  his  own  house,  and 
close  to  the  Tycoon's  residence,  the  next  highest  personage  in 
the  realm  by  office  was  slain  by  a  small  band  of  determined 
men,  retainers  of  a  member  of  the  reigning  House,  who  had 
thus  devoted  themselves  with  a  kind  of  chivalry,  and  certainly 
with  no  ordinary  courage,  to  avenge  the  wrongs  of  their  Chief. 
The  Prince  himself,  subsequently,  with  such  followers  as  he 
could  get  together,  was  reported  to  have  escaped  from  surveil- 


Chap.  XVIL]  FEUDAL  TIMES  REVIVED.  309 

lance,  and,  raising  the  standard  of  revolt  within  his  own  terri- 
tories, which  had  been  transferred  to  his  son,  to  have  seized  a 
castle  in  a  commanding  position.  This  was  held  by  one  of  the 
Tycoon's  high  officers,  whom  the  Prince  beheaded  without  scru- 
ple, and  then  bid  defiance  to  all  enemies  and  the  ruling  power ! 
Whether  this  was  the  commencement  of  a  civil  war,  or  merely 
the  outbreak  of  a  faction  feud  between  the  chiefs  of  two  rival 
houses,  which  would  end  in  the  destruction  of  one  or  both, 
seemed  for  some  time  doubtful.  The  danger  of  any  general 
conflict,  however,  whatever  it  might  have  been,  appeared  to 
have  passed  away  in  the  course  of  the  succeeding  months. 

It  is  difficult  to  determine  whether  the  boldness  of  the  at- 
tack, its  rutlilessness,  or  its  prompt  and  sure  success,  under  such 
circumstances,  were  most  remai'kable.  They  can  hardly  be  re- 
garded as  common  assassins,  for  it  was  an  act  of  self-devotion 
on  their  part.  They  had  nothing  to  gain,  and  no  personal  quar- 
rel to  avenge.  Death  on  the  spot,  or  a  more  tardy  end,  after 
going  through  the  extremity  of  torture,  was  sure,  and  escape 
all  but  an  impossibility  for  any.  It  carries  the  mind  back  to 
the  feudal  times  of  Europe,  when  the  streets  and  thoroughfares 
of  every  capital  were  scenes  of  daily  bloodshed  and  murder ; 
when  Guelfs  and  Ghibelines  fought  and  slew  each  other  when- 
ever they  met  or  an  ambuscade  could  rid  them  of  an  enemy. 

Certainly  this  picture  is  very  unlike  any  we  have  heretofore 
been  presented  with,  either  by  painstaking  KoBmpfer  and  Thun- 
berg,  in  past  generations,  or  hasty  visitors  since.  Those  writ- 
ers who,  on  the  strength  of  a  superficial  observation  or  a  flying 
visit  to  Nagasaki,  have  led  the  credulous  public  in  Europe  and 
America  to  believe  that  the  triumph  of  European  civilization  in 
Japan  is  already  secure,  and  that  the  Japanese  government  is 
promoting  it,  must  have  been  strangely  deluded.  As  to  prog- 
ress and  advance  in  the  path  of  civilization,  the  papers  laid 
before  Parliament  at  this  pei-iod,  in  which  I  passed  in  review 
the  progress  made  in  the  previous  six  months — the  first  after 
the  opening  of  the  ports  under  treaties  in  July  last — must  have 
given  a  veiy  different  impression.  The  Foreign  Representa- 
tives in  the  capital  found  so  little  disposition  on  the  part  of  the 
ruling  powers  to  give  a  liberal  interpretation  to  the  treaties, 
that,  ever  since  their  arrival  at  Yeddo,  they  had  been  chiefly 
occupied,  as  the  reader  will  have  seen,  in  resisting  and  protest- 
ing against  continual  and  systematic  violations  of  all  the  more 
essential  provisions  of  treaties.  As  to  the  alleged  '  eagerness 
of  the  Japanese  to  learn,'  before  schools  could  beneOt  them 
there  must  be  permission  for  them  to  attend.  Every  European 
lives  to  this  day  in  a  sort  of  moral  quarantine,  at  the  capitjil 


310  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XVII. 

more  especially ;  and  no  Japanese  above  the  rank  of  a  sei'vant 
or  a  coolie,  Avho  is  not  officially  employed  about  them  by  the 
Government,  may  hold  any  communication  with  them.  The 
American  Minister  was  even  told  so  when  expressing  a  desire 
to  see  some  officer  of  rank  whom  he  had  known  when  the  lat- 
ter had  been  in  office  before.  At  Kanagawa,  some  American 
missionaries  having  arrived  with  their  families,  and  desiring  to 
engage  one  or  two  female  servants,  were  told  without  any  cir- 
cumlocution by  the  officials  that  they  must  send  to  a  huge 
brothel,  erected  at  the  neighboring  settlement  of  Yokohama, 
and  pay  an  exorbitant  rate,  one  half  of  which  goes  to  the  Gov- 
ernment, it  being  the  law  of  Japan  that  none  but  this  class  of 
females  shall  serve  foreigners !  This  was  not  liberal  or  very 
agreeable,  neither  was  it  according  to  treaty.  As  to  the  rail- 
ways and  steam  communication  (which  about  this  time  I  saw 
it  asserted  in  some  of  the  public  journals  were  contemplated), 
one  fact  is  worth  a  page  of  suppositions.  A  very  few  months 
after  i)orts  were  opened  under  treaty,  a  fairly  liberal  offer  was 
made  by  the  agent  of  a  fine  steamer  to  keep  up  a  monthly  com- 
munication between  Yeddo,  Nagasaki,  and  Shanghae,  carrying 
freight,  treasure,  and  dispatches,  if  required  for  the  Govern- 
ment, for  the  supply  of  300  tons  of  Japanese  coal  each  voyage ; 
and  it  was  refused,  without  apparently  a  second  thought  as  to 
the  advantages  of  such  regular  and  rapid  communication,  either 
between  their  own  ports  or  with  those  of  China.  Indeed,  to 
them,  with  their  policy  and  views  of  political  economy ,  it  would 
obviously  be  considered  any  thing  but  an  advantage. 

The  murder  of  Ikomono-no-kami  threw  a  shadow  over  the 
capital — a  shadow  of  doubt,  and  uneasy  anticipation  of  farther 
troubles.  All  the  wards  of  the  city  were  kept  closed  for  two 
days,  and  for  some  considerable  time  afterward  were  carefully 
guarded  at  night.  Ostensibly  the  object  was  to  prevent  the 
escape  of  the  survivors  of  the  band ;  but  in  realit}',  I  believe, 
they  were  precautionary  measures  against  any  farther  attack 
upon  the  members  of  the  Tycoon's  government  by  bodies  of 
armed  men.  The  Legations  were  filled  with  troops,  contin- 
gents of  certain  Dairaios  held  bound  to  supply  them  by  feudal 
tenure,  to  which  were  added  for  our  greater  security  some  of 
the  Tycoon's  body-guard.  It  was  apparently  thought  the  For- 
eign Legations  might  be  the  next  object  of  attack,  not  so  much 
from  hostility  to  them  as  with  a  view  of  involving  the  existing 
Government,  and  bringing  on  a  conflict  with  Foreign  Powers. 
The  position  both  of  the  Government  and  the  Foreign  Repre- 
sentatives seemed  very  critical ;  and  no  one  in  the  Legations 
could  form  any  very  certain  estimate  of  the  real  amount  of  dan- 


Chap.  XVII.]  CURIOUS  DETAILS.  311 

ger  to  both,  for  tl»e  Japanese  Council  of  State,  true  to  their 
habitual  policy,  declined  furnishing  any  data  upon  which  a  judg- 
ment could  be  formed.  They  contented  themselves  with  meas- 
ures of  precaution  and  defense.  Field-pieces  were  placed  in  the 
court-yards  of  the  several  Legations,  and  the  Ministers  were  ur- 
gently requested  to  abstain  for  a  time  from  going  outside.  As 
past  experience  had  shown  any  pretext  was  good  with  a  view 
to  the  limitation  and  curtailment  of  the  privileges  of  the  Lega- 
tions— even  the  very  harmless  one  of  riding  through  the  city, 
or  into  the  surrounding  country  for  exercise,  as  was  my  daily 
habit — this  alone  tended  to  throw  some  doubt  over  the  whole 
of  their  proceedings,  and  left  all  the  foreign  diplomatic  agents 
in  a  very  unpleasant  state  of  suspense  and  uncertainty.  As  far 
as  the  British  Legation  was  concerned,  I  felt  bound  to  refuse 
constituting  myself  a  sort  of  State  prisoner  within  the  gates  of 
ray  own  residence,  and  I  took  my  rides  as  usual,  accompanied, 
at  the  earnest  entreaty  of  the  Japanese  Ministers,  by  a  few 
mounted  Yaconins,  a  very  useless  appendage  if  any  real  danger 
was  to  be  apprehended,  as  I  had  very  soon  occasion  to  remark, 
and  distinctly  told  the  Ministers,  giving  ray  grounds  for  arriv- 
ing at  the  conclusion. 

Some  very  curious  details  respecting  the  conspirators  who 
had  leagued  together  to  slay  the  Regent,  and  their  subsequent 
acts,  reached  me  long  after  this  period,  and,  as  they  are  highly 
illustrative  of  the  customs  and  traditions  of  the  Japanese,  and 
tend  to  throw  some  new  light  on  their  present  political  condi- 
tion, I  can  not  do  better  than  close  this  chapter  with  their  re- 
cital. 

Of  the  assassination  of  the  Tycoon  on  the  throne,  when  Com- 
modore Perry's  expedition  first  arrived  in  the  Bay  of  Yeddo 
in  1853,  some  account  has  already  been  given  in  a  preceding 
chapter,  and  so  far  back  this  tragic  history  may  be  easily  traced 
by  very  tangible  links  of  connection.  When  his  son,  Mina- 
motto  Yesado,  was  gathered  to  his  fathers,  after  the  signature 
of  the  second  American  treaty,  negotiated  by  Mr.  Harris  in 
1858,  with  or 'without  the  aid  of  medicine,' according  to  the 
odd  phraseology  of  the  Japanese  in  similar  cases  (though  there 
is  a  popular  conviction  that  he  had  the  aid  of  medicine  of  the 
most  effective  kind),  and  a  minor  of  the  royal  house  of  Kiusiu 
was  elected  to  fill  the  vacant  place,  Ikomono-no-kami  became 
Regent  by  hereditary  right.  And,  it  may  fairly  be  presumed, 
he  had  not  been  without  influence  in  an  election  by  the  great 
Council  of  Daimios,  which,  while  it  excluded  the  house  of  Mito 
— father  and  son  both  of  mature  age — virtually  placed  the  ex- 
ecutive power  of  the  realm  in  his  hands.    But  the  reader  knows 


312  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XVI  I. 

this  was  not  the  only  griovancc,  real  or  fancied,  of  the  Prince 
of  Mito,  then  an  old  man  of  sixty,  against  the  Regent.  He  was 
accused  by  the  latter  of  the  murder  of  the  last  Tycoon,  Mina- 
motto  Yesado,  by  poison,  and  on  the  strength  of  it  had  him 
banished  to  his  territories  as  a  temporary  measure,  under  prom- 
ise of  speedy  release.  So  far  from  this,  one  of  the  first  acts  of 
the  Council,  under  the  regency  of  Ikomono-no-kami,  was  to  de- 
pose him  from  his  principaUty  in  favor  of  his  son,  and  to  pass 
a  sentence  of  perpetual  banishment  from  the  capital.  Hence 
the  plot  of  Mito's  followers  to  avenge  their  Prince  for  this 
double  act  of  treachery,  and,  if  there  be  any  truth  in  the  popu- 
lar vei'sion,  more  devoted  or  determined  adherents  no  prince 
in  the  feudal  ages  of  Europe  could  ever  boast.  The  head  of 
the  Regent  is  said  to  have  been  got  safely  out  of  Yeddo,  and 
presented  to  the  Prince  their  master,  who  spat  upon  it  with 
maledictions,  as  the  head  of  his  greatest  enemy.  It  was  then 
carried  to  Miaco^  the  capital  of  the  Mikado,  and  there  exposed 
at  a  place  of  execution  in  that  city  especially  destined  for  princes 
condemned  to  be  executed — '■Sidio  onagaxoarcC  it  is  called,  and 
over  it  was  placed  a  placard,  'This  is  the  head  of  a  traitor  who 
has  violated  the  most  sacred  laws  of  Japan — those  which  for- 
bid the  admission  of  foreigners  into  the  country.'  After  two 
hours  of  exposure,  the  same  intrepid  followers  are  said  to  have 
brought  it  away,  and  in  the  night  to  have  cast  it  over  the  wall 
into  the  court  of  Ikomono's  palace  at  Yeddo,  from  whence  he 
had  sallied  out  in  pride  and  power  on  the  morning  of  his  death. 
A  strange  history — strange  if  true,  and  scarcely  less  so  if 
invented.  Not  less,  but  more  illustrative,  perhaps,  in  the  lat- 
ter case,  of  the  popular  idea  of  heroism  and  poetic  justice,  as 
these  are,  moreover,  exemplified  in  a  hundred  legends  and  tra- 
ditions, which  form  the  staple  of  their  theatrical  pieces,  their 
picture-books,  and  their  popular  tales.  One  of  the  most  cele- 
brated of  these  is  a  story  of  a  small  Daimio,  who,  having  a 
feud  in  past  times  w"ith  one  of  the  Tycoon's  Council  of  State, 
determined  to  avenge  himself  by  slaying  his  enemy  when  he 
met  him  in  the  palace.  He  made  the  attempt  and  failed,  in- 
flicting only  a  slight  wound,  some  of  the  attendants  having 
seized  him  from  behind  as  he  was  aiming  his  blow.  Foiled  in 
his  object,  he  returned  to  his  house ;  and  having  collected  his 
officers  and  retainers  about  him,  and  made  his  preparations  for 
disemboweling  himself,  he  deliberately  performed  the  opera- 
tion in  their  presence,  and  then,  handing  the  short  sword  cov- 
ered with  his  blood  to  his  secretary,  he  laid  his  dying  injunc- 
tions upon  him,  as  his  liege  lord,  with  that  very  weapon  to  take 
the  life  of  his  enemy.     The  latter,  being  freed  from  his  antag- 


Cmap.XVII.]  a  popular  legend.  313 

onist,  seized  upon  the  house  and  property  of  the  deceased  Da- 
imio,  and  turned  out  all  his  faithful  servitors.  These,  to  the 
number  of  forty-seven,  became  Lonhis,  under  the  command  of 
the  secretary,  all  bound  together  by  an  oath  to  accomplish  the 
destruction  of  their  master's  enemy !  Accordingly,  choosing 
their  time,  they  stormed  his  castle  during  the  night  when  they 
knew  he  was  inside,  and  entered  into  a  terrible  conflict  with 
all  his  retainers,  to  the  number  of  some  three  hundred ;  and 
such  was  their  valor  and  heroism  that  they  finally  vanquished 
them,  and  immediately  proceeded  to  search  for  their  chief 
victim.  He  was  concealed  in  a  secret  recess  between  two 
rooms,  with  one  of  his  friends ;  but  they  had  obtained  infor- 
mation of  the  existence  of  such  a  hiding-place,  and  one  of  them 
thrust  a  spear  through  the  partition.  The  blade  wounded  the 
Daimio,  but  not  in  a  vital  part ;  and  as  it  was  drawn  out  he 
took  care  to  wipe  it  with  his  sleeve,  so  that  on  examining  it 
and  seeing  no  mark  of  blood,  they  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
no  one  was  there,  and  that  he  had  escaped  their  vengeance. 
Nothing  then  remained  but  an  act  of  self-immolation ;  and, 
stripping  off  their  armor  and  dress,  they  were  just  in  the  act 
of  performing  the  Hara-kiru,  when  a  stifled  cough  reached 
their  ears  from  the  very  hiding-place  they  had  pierced  in  a  vain 
search.  Satisfied  now  that  their  enemy  was  still  in  their  grasp, 
they  sprung  to  their  feet,  tore  down  the  walls,  and  dragged 
him  and  his  friend  out,  when  the  secretary,  with  the  very 
sword  received  from  his  dying  chief,  struck  off  both  their 
heads.  Their  vengeance  thus  satisfied,  and  not  a  living  being 
remaining  to  be  slain,  they  then  performed  the  disemboweling 
with  the  greatest  heroism  and  complacency.  They  were  all 
buried  in  one  cemetery  in  Yeddo,  which  was  pointed  out  to 
me,  and  they  live  to  this  day  in  the  hearts  of  all  brave  and  loyal 
men  in  Japan  as  types  of  true  heroism !  As  this  story  was  re- 
cited to  me,  I  could  not  help  reflecting  on  what  must  be  the 
influence  of  such  a  popular  literature  and  history  upon  the 
character,  as  well  as  the  habits  of  thought  and  action  of  a  na- 
tion. When  children  listen  to  such  fragments  of  their  history 
or  popular  tales,  and,  as  they  grow  up,  hear  their  elders  praise 
the  valor  and  heroism  of  such  servitors,  and  see  them  go  at 
stated  periods  to  pay  honor  to  their  graves  centuries  after  the 
deed — and  such  is  the  fact — it  is  quite  obvious  this  general 
talk  and  unhesitating  approval  of  what  with  us,  perhaps,  would 
be  considered  great  crimes,  may  have  very  subtle  and  curious 
bearings  on  the  general  character  and  moral  training  of  the 
people.  What  its  exact  influence  may  be  we  can  not  determ- 
ine, perhaps;  but  that  it  is  deep  and  all-pervading,  affecting 


314  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XVIII. 

their  general  estimate  of  all  deeds  of  like  character,  whether  it 
be  the  slaying  of  a  Regent  or  the  massacre  of  a  Foreign  Lega- 
tion, is  very  certain,  and  presents  a  state  of  things  well  worthy 
of  serious  consideration. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 


Stray  Leaves  from  a  Journal. — Thoughts  discursive  and  retrospective  on 
Japanese  Relations. — Speculations  on  the  Future. — Trade  Returns  and 
General  Results. — Retrospect  of  the  first  Twelve  Months  after  the  opening 
of  the  Ports  by  Treaty. — The  Gain  and  the  Loss  summed  up. 

The  succeeding  three  months,  from  April  to  June,  in  this 
year  offered  little  that  was  either  striking  or  novel  to  recoi'd. 
Newspaper  writers  in  search  of '  sensation  articles,'  had  there 
been  any  such  in  Japan,  would  have  been  in  sad  dearth  of  ma- 
terials. The  usual  number  of  earthquakes  and  fires  only,  and 
not  a  single  case  of  slaughter  or  assassination !  A  year  had 
now  passed  and  gone  since  H.  M.  S. '  Sampson'  steamed  up  the 
Bay  of  Yeddo,  freighted  with  our  Diplomatic  and  Consular  es- 
tablishments in  Japan.  What  had  been  the  progress  made — 
the  gain  and  the  loss  on  the  first  twelve  months  of  effort,  dip- 
lomatic and  commercial  ? 

The  first  anniversary  of  the  day  of  arrival — not  likely  to  be 
forgotten  in  such  isolation — found  me  in  the  temple  where  I 
had  first  taken  up  my  residence  pending  the  selection  of  a  per- 
manent site  for  building,  and  the  erection  of  a  Legation.  It 
was  near  the  end  of  June  in  1860  ;  and  as  I  sat  musing  over 
the  past  and  the  future,  my  thoughts  dwelt  long  and  anxiously 
on  our  prospects  in  Japan,  and  the  course  which  foreign  rela- 
tions seemed  likely  to  take.  The  future  of  Japan  itself,  and 
its  contented,  industrious,  and  teeming  population,  entered 
largely  into  my  speculations. 

It  was  a  wild  night.  The  great  trees,  which  form  a  noble 
screen  of  evergreens  on  the  garden  side  of  the  temple,  and 
serve  to  shut  out  the  rays  'of  the  western  sun  as  it  descends, 
were  swaying  to  and  fro  like  the  masts  of  a  storm-tossed  ship 
at  sea,  while  the  wind  came  rushing  through  their  branches  in 
gusts  that  shook  the  building  itself  When  these  intermitted, 
the  loud  plashing  of  the  rain,  as  it  fell  in  torrents  from  the 
eaves,  and  beat  against  the  casements,  in  spite  of  a  projecting 
veranda,  ni:ide  a  dismal  sort  of  accompaniment.  It  Avas  the 
wind-up  of  the  wet  season,  which,  with  frequent  breaks,  had 
lasted  two  months.     '  Two  months !'  I  mentally  exclaimed,  as 


Chap.  XVIII.]  HOW  TIME  PASSED.  3I5 

the  thought  crossed  me ;  and  I  turned  mechanically  to  a  book 
labeled — with  questionable  accui-acy,  so  far  as  any  use  I  made 
of  it  was  concerned — '  Diary,'  to  satisfy  myself  that  my  imag- 
ination had  not  made  a  shorter  period  fill  that  space.  I  found 
it  was  nearly  that  time  since  any  entry  had  been  made  of  date, 
thought,  or  fact.  Time,  which  seemed  to  '  drag  its  slow  length 
along'  so  wearily  day  by  day,  had  nevertheless,  with  an  even 
and  stealthy  pace,  glided  on  almost  imperceptibly,  filching  dear 
life  away  by  inches.  Dear  life !  what  could  make  it  so,  in  such 
an  exile  as  this — in  total  isolation,  under  sentence  of  banish- 
ment without  any  definite  term — utter  banishment  from  all 
that  enters  into  and  constitutes  existence  in  a  civilized  coun- 
try? The  ringing  laugh  of  merry  childhood,  the  soft  voice 
and  familiar  tones  of  woman,  the  interchange  of  ideas  and  in- 
tellectual intercourse,  continually  fed  by  new  materials  for 
thought,  all  were  wanting  as  absolutely  as  though  an  evil  des- 
tiny had  cast  me  in  a  clearing  in  the  back  woods  of  Canada  or 
Texas!  Shut  up  in  this  great  heathen  city — a  very  wilder- 
ness of  men  and  women,  as  I  have  already  styled  it,  semi-civ- 
ilized Asiatics  of  a  strange  type — with  two  or  three  juniors 
and  fellow-victims  only  for  companions,  what  could  be  more 
dispiriting  or  more  fossilizing  ?  A  very  few  months  suflSce 
to  enable  half  a  dozen  people,  even  with  well-stocked  brains, 
to  travel  over  each  other's  minds,  and  to  do  it  so  often  in  ev- 
ery sense,  as  Johnson  once  feelingly  comjdained  when  restrict- 
ed for  a  few  weeks  only  to  such  a  narrow  range  and  spare 
diet,  that  nothing  new  remains  to  be  discovered — nothing  from 
'Dan  to  Beersheba.'    The  monotony  of 

A  twice-told  tale, 
Vexing  the  dull  ear  of  a  drowsy  man, 

is  liveliness  itself  to  a  tale  or  a  remark  heard  twenty  times 
over — the  same,  or  another  so  like  that  the  impression  is  iden- 
tical. 

Men  in  active  life,  after  time  has  scattered  gray  hairs  on 
their  track,  may  write  of  their  thoughts,  if  they  have  any,  but 
seldom  journalize  their  feelings  unless  they  have  a  great  deal 
of  spare  time  on  their  hands  and  little  to  occupy  their  minds. 
Yet,  if  any  thing  in  the  outward  conditions  of  an  existence 
could  drive  the  tide  backward  to  the  heart,  and  keep  thought 
fast  chained  in  a  work  of  introspection,  it  would  surely  be  such 
a  life  as  I  now  led  in  the  capital  of  the  Tycoon !  In  the  en- 
deavor to  escape  from  the  too  painful  consciousness  of  the  sub- 
jective *  me'  with  a  present  so  full  of  weariness,  and  a  future 
so  void  of  hope,  I  took  up  '  Eothen,'  to  try  and  lose,  in  the 
freshness  and  quiet  humor  of  its  author,  all  that  was  so  stale, 


316  THKEE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XVIII. 

flat,  and  unprofitable  about  myself.  Even  in  describing  scenes 
which  we  have  either  traveled  over  in  person,  or  vicariously  in 
the  thousand  and  one  writers  of  '  narratives'  and  '  diaries' — 
from  Lady  Wortley  Montagu  or  'Anastasius'  Hope,  to  War- 
burton  and  Miss  Martineau,  learned  in  the  Pharaohs — how 
pleasantly  still  he  beguiles  you !  How  grateful  we  feel  for  his 
consideration  in  sparing  us  all  scraps  of  other  people's  learning 
or  dullness — dissertations  on  antiquities  only  interesting  on  the 
spot ;  and  columns  of  statistics  which  nobody  can  check,  or 
would  care  to  take  the  trouble  of  scrutinizing  if  they  could — 
contenting  himself  and  his  reader  with  slight  allusions  and  in- 
cidental references  only.  But,  after  a  short  time,  even  this  re- 
source failed  on  the  present  occasion.  The  wind  continued  its 
wierd  incantations  among  the  branches  of  the  trees,  and,  in  a 
feeling  of  desperation,  drawing  the  neglected  diary  to  me,  I 
sat  down  and  wrote,  far  into  the  night,  as  the  only  way  of  lay- 
ing the  ghosts  of  things  Japanese,  past,  present,  and  future, 
which  toould  not  be  chased  away  by  any  less  potent  spell. 

As  I  turned  over  the  pages  not  long  ago,  seeking,  or  rather 
taking  a  mental  inventory  of  the  materials  which  had  been  in- 
sensibly accumulating  ever  since  my  arrival  in  the  country,  I 
came  upon  this  night's  work,  long  cast  aside  and  forgotten.  I 
found,  in  glancing  over  them,  that  they  supplied  a  better  and 
more  vivid  picture  of  my  Japanese  life  at  this  period,  in  all  its 
most  characteristic  features,  than  I  could  attempt  to  repro- 
duce. And,  as  one  object  in  this  narrative  of  my  residence  in 
Japan  is  to  give  such  glimpses  of  the  people  and  their  rulers 
among  whom  my  lot  was  cast  as  flitted  before  my  eyes  like 
dissolving  views,  day  after  day,  and  so  afford  to  those  who 
have  never  been  in  the  country  a  faithful  report  of  my  own 
impressions,  photographed  at  the  moment,  under  an  Eastern 
sky,  I  can  not  do  better  than  give  the  fragment  as  it  was  writ- 
ten, while  the  mind  was  in  the  sensitive  state  which  best  fits 
it  to  receive  and  perpetuate  a  sharp  and  well-defined  image  of 
the  objects  brought  within  its  field.  If  it  answers  no  other  or 
better  purpose,  it  will  at  least  supply  the  Retrospect  it  was 
my  desire  to  give  at  this  .stage,  and  afford  a  sort  of  halting- 
place  from  whence  we  may  look  back  upon  the  country  trav- 
eled over,  and  take  a  glance  at  the  road  which  lies  stretched 
before  us  to  a  yet  distant  horizon.  If  somewhat  meditative 
and  discursive,  local  coloring  and  fidelity  of  detail  may  make 
up  for  a  certain  diff'usiveness,  and  give  to  a  slight  sketch  from 
nature  a  merit  often  wanting  in  a  more  studied  picture.  With 
this  apology  I  venture  to  ti'ansfer,  without  material  change  or 
emendation,  the  following 


Chap.xviii.]        leaves  of  a  journal.  317 


STRAY   LEAVES   FROM   A   JOURNAL. 

*A  wide  gap  there  would  be  to  fill  up  if  this  were  really  in- 
tended to  be  a  daily  journal  or  record,  which  it  is  not,  and 
never  will  be.  There  is  so  much  in  life,  in  all  we  say,  and  do, 
and  feel,  to  say  nothing  of  all  we  think,  which  would  be  tedi- 
ous if  written  down — often  tedious  and  wearisome  enough  in 
the  acting,  but  doubly  so  in  the  recording,  and  useless  withal ! 
It  is  related  of  a  once  celebrated  physician — Dr.  Fordyce,  I 
think — that  he  was  remarkable,  among  other  things,  for  an 
astonishing  memory  for  details,  and  the  fidelity  and  minute- 
ness with  which  he  could  recall,  after  the  lapse  of  any  number 
of  years,  the  occurrences  of  any  given  day  of  his  life,  even  in 
the  most  trivial  things.  And  it  is  said  he  owed  this  entirely 
to  a  discipline  he  voluntarily  imposed  upon  himself  in  youth, 
never  to  go  to  bed  until  he  had  recapitulated  to  himself  every 
word  and  incident  of  the  day,  beginning  with  the  order  in 
which  he  pulled  his  stockings  on,  and  so  throughout  the  day 
to  the  end,  not  forgetting  the  dishes  on  the  table  at  dinner ! 
I  remember  being  struck,  when  I  heard  it,  young  as  I  then 
was,  with  the  feeling  that  not  even  the  memory  or  the  gift  of 
a  Mezzofanti  would  be  worth  purchasing  at  such  a  price  as  the 
intolerable  penance  of  living  all  one's  life  twice  over — in  its 
trivialities  and  its  boredom,  as  well  as  its  pleasant  scenes ! 
But,  if  I  thought  so  then,  when  life  had  much  of  novelty  in 
store,  and  freshness  too,  what  would  be  ray  feelings  if  any  ma- 
levolent spirit  were  to  threaten  me  with  such  a  burden  7iow — 
here  in  Yeddo!  A  thousand  things  must  be  said  and  done 
every  day — needful  for  the  time,  doubtless  ;  but,  having  once 
served  their  generation,  like  the  patriarchs  of  old,  and  passed 
away,  it  would  be  a  vile  proceeding  to  call  them  from  their 
graves  and  make  them  walk  this  earth  again.  Doubtless  many 
incidents  and  occurrences  are  daily  taking  place  among  us 
which  seem  trivial  at  the  time,  though  their  influence  upon 
ourselves,  and  upon  many  others,  may  extend  through  all  time. 
Indeed,  in  one  sense,  nothing  that  happens  is  without  an  in- 
fluence, or  wholly  trivial  and  unimportant.  Nevertheless,  even 
writers  of  diaries  (with  the  exception  of  a  Pepys,  who  is  amus- 
ing and  instructive  because  all  the  trivial  and  minute  incidents 
of  his  daily  life,  and  that  of  his  compeers,  like  flies  in  amber, 
are  so  perfectly  preserved  for  a  future  generation)  must  of 
necessity  exercise  some  discrimination  in  what  they  record  or 
omit.  I  wonder  whether  any  one  ever  reads  their  own  jour- 
nals ?  I  remember  once  trying  myself,  and  finding  it  impossi- 
ble ;  and  so  I  threw  the  musty  volumes  into  the  fire,  and  hav© 


318  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XVIII. 

never  been  guilty  of  a  "  diary"  since.  After  all,  how  impossi- 
ble it  is  to  tell  by  anticipation  which  of  the  many  thousand  in- 
cidents or  occxirrences  of  a  life  will  prove  the  significant  events 
or  turning  points  of  a  destiny,  or  even  the  headings  for  a  chap- 
ter of  Life.  It  is  told  of  Louis  Seize,  when  the  concealed  re- 
cesses of  theTuileries  gave  up  his  private  journal  to  the  irrev- 
erent liands  of  the  mob,  that  one  entry  was  found  often  repeat- 
ed during  the  most  critical  period  immediately  preceding  the 
Revolution — "Rien,  rien,  rien!"  Time,  which  was  hurrying 
nations  to  their  late  and  him  to  the  scaffold — advancing  with 
giant  strides  indeed — seemed  to  the  unfortunate  monarch  only 
a  blank,  and  its  progress  equally  void  of  interest  or  signifi- 
cance !  We  exclaim,  "  How  strange  !  how  unaccountable !" 
yet  the  same  thing  happens  to  most  of  us,  only  the  scene  of 
action  is  less  historic.  We  meet  a  certain  stranger  one  day, 
make  his  acquaintance,  and  think  no  more  about  it  until,  in  aft- 
er 3'ears,  we  perceive  that  a  whole  chain  of  events  began  at 
that  first  link,  influencing,  it  may  be,  the  whole  future  course 
of  life.  Or,  you  slip  your  foot  as  you  are  springing  out  of  a 
vehicle,  and  are  laid  up  for  a  week,  instead  of  taking  the  train — 
which  never  reached  its  destination,  and  was  shattered  in  pie- 
ces. You  owed  your  life,  under  Providence,  to  that  awkward 
but  most  fortunate  slip !  The  faculty  of  discerning  the  true 
significance  and  importance  of  passing  events,  especially  of  the 
more  seemingly  trivial  or  fortuitous  kind,  would  imply  a  gift 
of  divination  which  might  not  always  be  a  blessing,  though 
we  are  apt  to  desire  it  above  all  things.  I  think  it  is  Emerson 
says,  "  The  present  always  seems  trivial  in  our  eyes,  but  the 
present  is  a  king  in  disguise."  We  succeed  better  in  retro- 
spect ;  and  the  "  wisdom  of  after  events"  is  often  the  only  true 
wisdom  we  ever  attain,  though  we  all  aim  at  prevision  and 
the  seer's  gift.  Our  contemplation  of  the  past,  however,  loses 
much  of  its  interest,  and  utility  too,  if  we  cease  to  look  forward 
into  the  future.  No  one  cares  either  for  the  past,  or  even  for 
the  present  (beyond  the  avoidance  of  actual  pain  or  weariness), 
unless  the  future  holds  some  prize — some  thing  to  desire  and 
to  h(ype^  as  well  as  to  strive,  for  !  If  any  one  stil!  actively  em- 
ployed could  feel  what  the  French  poet,  Henry  Murgher,  says 
80  emphatically  for  himself,  in  one  of  his  Bohemian  pieces, 

La  vie 
Pour  moi  n'a  plus  d'avenir, 

I  would  not  give  much  for  his  present  existence.  But  the  his- 
tory of  a  life,  or  two  lives,  might  sometimes  be  summed  up, 
like  the  poet's,  in  one  fatal  phrase — 


Chap.  XVIII.]  WEAR  AND  TEAR.  319 

Of  all  sad  words  of  tongue  or  pen, 
The  saddest  still  are  these — It  might  have  been  ! 

An  irrevocable  past  and  a  hopeless  future  are  both  implied. 
I  don't  know  what  has  betrayed  me  into  this  vein  of  moraliz- 
ing ;  I  believe  I  am  getting  weary  of  the  never-ending  grind 
of  the  wheels  of  life,  and  the  unbroken  monotony  of  such  an 
existence — weary,  in  spite  of  all  my  philosophy,  its  constant 
dangers  and  startling  incidents.  One  carries  a  life  in  one's 
hand  until  at  last  it  becomes  an  intolerable  burden,  and  we  are 
ready  to  throw  it  away.  The  same  ever-recurring  tracasseries 
and  anxieties,  with  the  equally  unfailing  consciousness  of  ina- 
bility to  secure  any  really  satisfactory  results,  harass  and  tire 
me  !     Not  all  the  '  peace,'  but 

All  the  misery  which  springs 
From  the  large  aggregate  of  little  things, 

should  be  the  reading  here.  Foreign  merchants  and  Japanese 
officials  often  vying  with  each  other  in  efforts  to  tear  the  treat- 
ies into  shreds,  or,  like  clown  and  harlequin,  leaping  one  after 
the  other  through  all  its  paper  clauses,  wholly  regardless  of 
the  damage  done  to  more  permanent  interests  than  those  of 
the  hour,  and  more  important  objects  than  those  of  the  few  in- 
dividuals on  the  spot!  Consuls  of  many  nations  sometimes 
joining  in  this  play  at  cross  purposes  with  each  other,  some 
from  design,  and  others  from  want  of  judgment.  And  so  the 
weary  wheel  goes  round,  always  demanding  action,  nerve,  and 
effort,  but  never  advancing  or  making  any  perceptible  progress 
toward  a  finite  end.  It  is  recorded  of  Johnson  that  he  pro- 
pounded the  question  one  day,  "  Who  was  the  most  to  be  en- 
vied, he  who  had  every  thing  to  hope  and  nothing  to  fear,  or 
the  man  in  whom  these  conditions  were  reversed  by  his  hav- 
ing every  thing  to  fear  and  nothing  to  hope  .*"'  The  latter 
would  very  well  apply  to  a  diplomatic  agent  in  Japan,  al- 
though Johnson  designed  it  to  describe  the  rich  man  as  com- 
f)ared  with  the  poor,  who  has  nothing  to  lose,  and  consequent- 
y  little  to  fear. 

'  Of  daily  work  and  events  there  seems  to  be  little  worth  re. 
cording,  and  yet  each  day  brings  its  task,  and  generally  its 
struggle  with  the  adverse  influences  about  us.  Political  events 
do  not,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  move  very  fast  here.  The  status 
quo  remains,  despite  many  mutterings  and  subterranean  heav- 
ings  of  this  volcanic  soil  beneath  our  feet,  so  truly  emblematic 
or  typical  of  the  moral  atmcisphere  above.  Changes  seem  im- 
pending, and  yet  they  do  not  come,  or  come  but  slowly  and 
partially.     We  are  in  a  very  unfjivorable  position  for  correct 


320  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XVIII. 

judgment,  however.  The  keenest  observer  of  the  tunes, 
among  foreigners  domiciled  in  Japan,  is  in  danger  of  writing 
"  Rien,  rien,"  on  the  eve  of  a  revolution  or  a  convulsion  that 
would  involve  all  in  a  common  ruin.  On  the  other  hand,  he  is 
taught  caution  by  the  fear  of  falling  into  the  opposite  extreme, 
and  drawing  alarming  inferences  from  what  may,  after  all,  be 
only  volcanic  throes  that  will  end  in  nothing.  The  Prince  of 
Mito  is  said  to  have  tendered  his  submission.  The  Ministers 
of  Foreign  Affairs,  with  whom  I  had  a  long  interview  lately, 
were,  as  usual,  vague  and  mysterious,  not  wholly  denying  the 
existence  of  disturbances,  but  carefully  avoiding  any  details. 
It  lasted  (as  usual,  also)  more  than  four  hours,  but  was,  upon 
the  whole,  more  than  usually  amicable  in  its  tone  ;  so  much  so, 
indeed,  that  on  taking  leave,  and  expressing  my  regret  to  have 
been  compelled  to  detain  them  so  long,  they  replied,  with  more 
'■''effusion^''  than  is  their  habit,  "  we  do  not  care  about  its  length, 
but  that  which  is  agreeable  to  us  is  the  friendly  and  satisfac- 
tory mode  in  which  all  matters  have  been  discussed." 

'  The  whole  life  of  a  Diplomatic  Agent  here  is  one  uninter- 
rupted struggle  against  unceasing  efforts  to  make  the  treaties 
null  and  void  in  effect.  Progress  has  been  made,  however.  I 
see,  on  looking  back,  certain  landmarks  plainly  visible.  If  the 
untiring  wave  of  encroachment  has  gained  upon  us  at  some 
points,  strong  breakwaters  at  others  stand  high  and  dry  above 
all  the  spray  and  turmoil  of  the  vexed  elements.  The  estab- 
lishment of  our  trade  and  diplomatic  relations  in  the  country 
may  be  compared  to  the  launch  of  the  "  Great  Eastern."  So 
far  from  the  water's  edge,  and  so  firmly  fixed  in  the  unyield- 
ing clay,  all  the  appliances  of  European  science  and  power 
seem  to  be  invoked  in  vain.  Now  a  few  inches  or  feet  are 
gained,  when  the  strain  proves  too  much  for  the  gear,  and  back 
she  slips,  more  firmly  imbedded  apparently  than  ever !  But 
new  pressure  is  brought  to  bear,  and  again  the  leviathan  plain- 
ly moves,  and  this  time  what  is  gained  is  held.  And  thus  the 
struggle  is  continued  against  inert  bulk  and  passive  resistance. 
It  is  only  by  measuring  the  distance  at  intervals,  however,  that 
we  can  be  satisfied  any  progress  is  actually  made.  At  last  she 
is  swung  into  the  tide  and  floats ;  but  will  she  sail  and  carry 
merchandise  ?  Ah  !  that  still  remains  a  knotty  question — a 
problem  hard  of  solution  with  us,  as  it  was  once  with  the 
shareholders  of  the  "  Great  Eastern  ;"  but  we  work  on  in  the 
mean  while,  toiling  and  hoping  still. 

'  Not  long  ago  I  had  another  interview  with  Ando  Tsusi- 
mano-kami,  the  second  of  the  two  Ministers  for  Foreign  Af- 
fairs.   I  had,  to  begin  with,  a  case  of  murderous  onslaught 


Chap.  XAIII.]  SCOEES  TO  SETTLE.  321 

niarlc  by  a  drunken  Yaconin  on  an  English  merchant  at  Hako- 
(ladi — not  ovor  discreet,  perhaps,  in  risking  a  collision,  though 
clearly  the  Japanese  was  the  aggressor,  and  apparently  out  of 
pure  wantonness  and  malice.  Then  I  had  to  meet,  on  their 
side,  a  complaint  made  by  Government  officers  of  rudeness, 
said  to  have  been  offered  them  by  a  Consul  at  the  same  port, 
in  which  I  sliouid  have  liked  to  have  felt  more  certain  there 
was  no  foundation  !  We  had  next,  as  I  told  him,  to  take  ship 
for  Nagasaki,  and  discuss  the  teimre  of  land  in  the  foreign  lo- 
cation there ;  to  insist  upon  our  right  to  build  on  the  hill-side, 
and  not  to  be  penned  up  like  cattle  in  a  swamp  below — a  De- 
cima  Avithout  its  advantages  ;  to  contend  for  a  cemetery  to 
bury  our  dead,  and  the  ground  for  a  dock  in  which  to  refiair 
our  ships  Thence  back  to  Kanagawa,  and  settle  a  squabble 
about  itziboos  between  the  Governor  of  that  place  and  H.  M.'s 
Consul,  who  had  been  accused  by  the  former  of  giving  a  false 
return — a  trifle  they  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  lose  time  in 
substantiating  by  evidence ;  and  Ilis  Excellency  was  surprised 
I  took  it  seriously,  and  insisted  on  the  charge  being  either  sub- 
stantiated, or  withdrawn  with  an  apology.  Then  to  Yeddo  to 
protest  against  the  insult  offered  by  shutting  the  gates  of  the 
Imperial  cemetery,  open  to  all  the  population  of  Yeddo,  in  the 
face  of  some  of  the  Legation,  with  every  mark  of  premeditated 
rudeness,  on  which  it  was  necessary  to  say  many  hard  things, 
as  upon  their  whole  policy  of  surrounding  the  Foreign  Repre- 
sentatives with  meddling  spies  and  subaltern  police,  who  keep 
us  in  an  odious  quarantine,  and  prevent  all  free  access.  This 
is  yet  a  drawn  battle,  which  has  been  going  on  ever  since  we 
arrived,  and  where,  so  far,  we  have  rather  lost  than  gained 
ground !  And  so,  heartily  weary,  no  doubt,  of  each  other,  we 
withdrew  our  respective  forces  about  sunset,  and  I  tried  to  re- 
cover my  equanimity  on  a  favorite  hack,  who  evidently  thought 
these  five-hour  conferences  quite  as  tiresome  as  his  master,  and 
went  off  at  a  pace  which  left  the  attendant  Yaconins  small  time 
to  settle  themselves  on  the  top  of  their  outlandish  saddles,  on 
which  they  perch  like  apes,  and  with  quite  as  little  grip  on 
their  horses.  I  sometimes  think,  as  they  pass  me,  what  an  ex* 
ample  a  troop  of  dragoons  would  make  of  a  few  thousands  of 
them,  if  ever  they  had  a  chance  and  got  in  among  them.  As 
I  passed  along  the  fmn'  miles  of  ramparts  and  streets  which  lie 
between  the  minister's  house  adjoinimr  the  Tycoon's  ]\nl.nce 
and  Tozengee,  I  guided  my  horse  with  ched'cd  speed  through 
the  swarms  of  children  and  Yeddites  ofmiiturer  ye.irp,  (qually 
sans  ctilottes  in  the  literal  sense.  Night  was  closing  in  ;  my 
escort  in  advance  had  lanterns  attached  to  their  belts  by  a 

02 


322 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  XVIII. 


bamboo,  and  at  short  intervals  the  lights  from  the  bath-houses 
showed  the  usual  scene  of  two  or  three  dozen  figures  laughing, 
splashing,  and  talking.  Ever  and  anon  some  l3aimio's  retain- 
er would  swagger  past  with  a  truculent  jest  of  scorn  and  de- 


HOMEWARD   BOUND. 

fiance,  while  more  peaceable  wayfarers  were  gaining  their 
homes.  I  fell  insensibly  into  a  train  of  thought  on  the  destiny 
which  had  left  me  stranded  on  this  far-off  shore,  and  moralizing 
on  the  sort  of  people  among  whom  my  lot  had  been  cast.  The 
description  the  authoress  of  the  "  Mill  on  the  Floss"  gives  of 
that  degraded  species  of  existence,  the  ant-hill  life  of  the  Dod- 
sons  and  Tullivers  in  the  Yorkshire  dells,  as  in  other  parts  of 
our  soi-disant  Christian  land,  mutato  nomine^  would  admirably 
answer  for  the  Japanese ;  the  Dodsons  have  their  national 
countertype  here. 

'  This  "  emmet  life,"  described  as  essentially  a  sordid,  sensu- 
al life,  "irradiated  by  no  sublime  principles,  no  romantic  vis- 
ions, no  active  self-renouncing  faith — a  life  so  sordid  that  even 
sorrow  hardly  suffices  to  lift  it  above  the  level  of  the  tragi- 
comic." So  says  the  writer  of  the  clever  critique  in  the 
"  Times"  which  I  have  just  been  reading.  I  could  not  help  be- 
ing struck  with  its  perfect  applicability  to  the  Japanese.  Here 
I  see  it  in  the  reality  in  still  more  vivid  colors  than  even  the 
authoress  has  limned  her  characters, "  in  all  its  nakedness,  hid- 
eousness,  and  littleness,"  this  life  of  respectable  brutishness, 
which  so  many  persons  lead  even  in  Europe,  "  illumined  by  not 
one  ray  of  spiritual  influence,  by  no  suspicion  of  a  higher  life, 
of  another  world,  of  a  surrounding  divinity."  Thus  live  and 
die  these  thirty  millions  of  human  beings  from  one  generation 
to  another.  Yet  they  do  not  seem  to  become  more  brutish, 
more  degraded,  tnore  immoral.     What  they  are  now  they  seem 


Chap.  XVIU.]  SPECULATIONS.  823 

to  have  been,  without  change,  centuries  ago ;  perhaps  neither 
much  better  nor  worse  than  millions  in  other  lands  claiming 
to  be  both  civilized  and  Christians ! 

'  In  this  lies  a  great  mystery.  Not  that  a  pagan  and  long- 
isolated  people  should  lead  a  more  or  less  pagan  and  brutalized 
life  of  material  existence,  but  that  they  should  not,  by  well- 
marked  degrees  of  sharp  descent,  deteriorate  and  become  en- 
tirely brutish.  Such  is  certainly  not  the  fact.  On  the  contra- 
ry, they  are  a  well-to-do,  flourishing,  and  advancing  people,  and 
for  generations  and  centuries  have  maintained  a  respectable 
level  of  intellectual  cultivation  and  social  virtues.  It  is  natural 
that  I  should  speculate  on  this  problem  and  the  past  of  the 
Japanese,  for  I  am  convinced  a  key  to  all  progress  in  the  future 
can  only  be  made  after  careful  examination  of  all  the  wards  of 
the  lock  by  which  we  are  kept  out — until,  in  a  word,  we  can 
satisfactorily  account  for  all  the  phenomena  of  national  exist- 
ence and  progress  under  such  conditions. 

'The  Japanese  seem  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  principle 
often  so  eloquently  enforced  by  our  own  Conservative  press, 
that  no  old  laws  should  be  abrogated  or  adjusted  until  a  clear 
case  of  necessity  is  made  out,  and  even  then  with  fear  and 
trembling,  remembering  that  it  is  more  easy  to  discover  the 
mischief  which  an  existing  law  does  than  the  mischief  which  it 
prevents.  Perhaps  have  they  some  dim  consciousness  even, 
that  in  the  application  of  a  theory,  especially  in  so  complicated 
a  subject  as  political  economy,  the  most  sagacious  may  over- 
look some  item  which  may  be  fatal  to  the  success  of  the  meas- 
ure, however  well  meant.  That  the  Japanese  rulers  should  be 
nervous  and  distrustful,  more  particularly  of  the  applications 
■which  Foreign  Powers  urge,  feeling  no  great  certainty  of  the 
disinterestedness  or  honesty  of  their  advisers,  and  no  faith  in 
the  truth  of  a  political  economy  which  is  not  their  own,  and  in 
total  discord  with  the  principles  hitherto  regarded  by  them  as 
the  only  true  guides  to  a  nation's  welfare  and  prosperity,  is 
not  only  what  might  be  anticipated  as  natural,  but  is  obviously 
inevitable.  Perhaps  also  they  have  been  warned  by  their  own 
experience  of  a  fact  by  no  means  unknown  to  statesmen  in  Eu- 
rope, that  it  is  "  scarcely  possible  to  make  too  much  allowance 
for  friction  in  the  actual  business  of  life."  And  were  they  bet- 
ter read  in  history,  they  might  quote  from  our  own,  that  a 
grave  authority,  and  one  of  our  own  Daimios,  whose  head  was 
brought  to  the  block  by  fierce  innovators,  although  it  was  said 
to  be  the  wisest  head  that  stood  on  any  pair  of  shoulders  in 
England,*  declared,  "how  advised  wc  ought  to  be  of  any  inno- 
*  Lord  StraflFord. 


324  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XVIII. 

vation,  considering  that  inconveniences  are  rather  found  by  ex- 
perience than  foreseen  by  judgment."  &tare  super  antiquas 
mas  is  held  to  be  a  good  maxim  in  more  enlightened  countries 
than  Japan !  And,  in  truth,  we  are  apt  to  be  impatient,  and 
too  ready,  perhaps — seeing  with  other  eyes  than  theirs  where 
the  true  interests  of  both  countries  lie,  and  all  that  is  obstruc- 
tive and  retrograde  in  their  policy — to  exclaim  against  their 
arguments  for  inaction.  But  thirty  years  ago,  in  England,  very 
similar  reasoning  was  daily  produced  by  leading  statesmen  in 
Lords  and  Commons  against  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  laws ;  the 
same  reasoning  is  commonly  resorted  to  through  Europe  gen- 
erally at  this  day ;  and  are  we  so  sure  that  opposition  to  free 
trade,  and  to  innovation  in  legislation,  have  no  supporters 
among  our  own  Daimios  still  ?  Are  there  no  "  stupid  preju- 
dices," no  "  antiquated  notions,"  or  "  ecclesiastical  bigotry," 
the  legacies  of  former  generations,  yet  to  be  done  battle  with 
in  England,  or  her  offspring,  free  and  enlightened  America  ? — 
England,  the  great  proselytizer  of  nations,  and  foremost  among 
the  champions  of  free  trade !  What  if  the  Japanese  Mission, 
when  about  to  sail  for  England,  had  received  instructions  to 
propose,  not  free  trade — that  we  have  at  length  made  up  our 
minds  to  accept  as  the  best  for  our  own  interests  as  a  whole 
nation,  however  hard  it  may  press  upon  fractional  portions  as 
producers — but  the  reduction,  say,  of  our  exorbitant  duty  of  200 
per  cent,  upon  tea  (one  of  the  great  staples  of  Japan),  or,  with 
a  supposed  leaning  to  the  introduction  of  the  Sintoo  religion 
and  system  of  endowment,  they  should  propose  to  us  to  throw 
open  the  doors  of  our  universities  and  churches  to  all  comers, 
and  alter  the  whole  system  and  curriculum  of  education  ;  or  a 
modification  of  our  representative  institutions  and  system  of 
government  as  "  essential  to  greater  harmony  and  cordiality 
in  the  relations  between  the  two  countries,  the  existing  order 
of  things  being  a  grave  impediment,  preventing  our  ever  taking 
a  just  view  of  the  policy  of  an  Eastern  kingdom  like  Japan  ?" 
They  would  probably  meet  with  some  opposition  in  the  coun- 
try, if  not  active  hostility.  Their  pretensions  to  make  innova- 
tions would  not  escape  sharp  discussion  and  censure  in  Lords 
and  Commons ;  Exeter  Hall  might  not  speak  altogether  mildly 
on  the  subject ;  I  should  not  be  surprised  if,  at  the  first  grand 
meeting  to  consider  the  "  interests  of  religion  and  order," 
their  immediate  and  ignominious  expulsion  from  the  kingdom 
might  not  be  voted  unanimously !  As  for  the  Government,  it 
might  either  pooh-pooh  the  whole  thing  or  treat  it  with  scorn  ; 
but,  in  either  case,  means  Avould  be  found,  in  perfectly  diplo- 
matic language,  I  have  no  doubt,  of  telling  them  that  the  Jaj)- 


Chap.  XVIlI.]  JAPANESE  TRADE  325 

ancse  Government  had  better  mind  their  own  business,  and 
leave  us  to  deal  with  England  and  its  affairs,  as  we  knew  best. 

'  From  all  the^  -considerations,  bearing  upon  the  history  of 
the  past  and  the  present,  there  is  a  moral  to  be  drawn,  I  think. 
"  A  narrow-necked  bottle,"  says  Quintilian  somewhere,  "  must 
be  humored ;  pour  gently,  or  yoxi,  spill  instead  ofJiW  So  I 
must  find  yet  more  patience  to  continue  the  work,  and  try  "  to 
fill  instead  of  spill." 

'  But,  despite  all  obstacles  and  diflSculties,  as  I  have  noted, 
some  progress  has  really  been  made.  My  letters  from  England 
might  encourage  me.  "  We  are  surprised  so  much  has  been 
done  in  the  time ;  the  merchants  are  well  satisfied  with  the  re- 
sults and  full  of  hope.  You  who  are  on  the  spot,  and  occupied 
in  clearing  away  the  rubbish,  do  not  see  it;  but  we  who  are 
looking  on  from  the  distance  perceive  your  progress,  and  are 
content."  And  so  I  suppose  I  must  learn  to  be,  if  I  am  to  re- 
main another  year  at  the  same  work,  and  I  see  no  prospect  of 
relief.  Certainly  the  year,  just  ended,  since  the  opening  of  the 
ports  and  the  exchange  of  ratifications,  has  been  an  eventful 
one  for  Japan,  and  a  very  weary  one  for  "  H.  M.'s  Representa- 
tive at  the  Court  of  the  Tycoon."  Let  us  pass  it  in  review, 
count  the  gain  and  the  loss ;  these  may  both  be  summed  up 
now,  and  a  balance  struck. 

*A8  to  what  has  been  actually  achieved  in  the  way  of  Com- 
merce during  the  first  year  after  the  opening  of  the  ports,  it 
has  been  clearly  established  that  Japan  can  furnish  both  tea 
and  SILK  of  such  quality  and  price  as  will  bring  both  into  the 
home  market  advantageously,  in  competition  with  those  of  Chi- 
na. Some  15,000  chests  of  tea,  and  not  less  than  3000  bales 
of  silk,  exported  during  the  twelve  months,  proved,  by  the 
prices  obtained  in  the  home  markets,  and  the  profits  realized, 
that  they  could  enter  into  such  competition.  Some  of  the  finer 
silk  realized  four  shillings  a  pound  more  than  the  best  prod- 
uce of  China.'  [I  may  here  remark  that  at  first  it  was  sup- 
posed we  had  probably  absorbed  the  whole  surplus  of  the 
country,  and  that  the  amount  exported  showed,  therefore,  all 
that  was  immediately  producible  for  foreign  trade.  But  even 
at  the  time  there  was  a  promise,  amply  realized  in  the  follow- 
ing year,  of  a  large  increase,  the  limits  of  which  have  not  yet 
been  ascertained.     The  3000  bales  swelled  to  18,000.] 

'In  the  streets  of  Yed<lo  hundreds  of  tea-chests  are  being 
manufactured  in  preparation  for  exports;  and  of  this  staple  of 
a  foreign  trade  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  the  quantity 
hitherto  exported  might  be  increased  to  an  indefinite  extent, 
without  even  additional  planting.    The  Japanese  themselves 


326  THREE  YEAUS  IX  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XVIII. 

say  that,  having  no  demand  except  for  home  consumption,  all 
the  leaves  had  never  been  plucked,  noi-,  in  regard  to  silk,  all 
the  cocoons  reeled.  Many  other  articlf.'' ■;l'u''deiuand  for  the 
foreign  markets,  exclusive  of  the  lai-ge  supplies  for  the  Chi- 
nese,"have  been  discovered,  calculated  to  yield  a  large  profit, 
and  constituting  of  themselves  a  considerable  trade:  Vegeta- 
ble Wax  and  Oils,  Mother-of-pearl  shells.  Camphor,  Gall-nuts, 
etc.  Flour  has  been  largely  in  demand  for  China.  The  min- 
eral wealth  of  Japan  we  knew  before  was  great,  but  little 
progress  in  this  direction  has  been  made.  The  Japanese  gov- 
ernment continue  to  manifest  the  greatest  jealousy  of  our  de- 
mands, and  an  insuperable  repugnance  to  the  produce  of  any 
of  their  mines  being  exported.  Coal,  of  which  they  are,  per- 
haps, the  least  careful,  requires  better  working  to  be  very 
available  for  steamers  ;  probably  they  possess  much  better 
than  any  they  have  allowed  to  find  its  way  to  the  open  ports.* 
Of  imports,  at  this  time,  little  can  be  said  that  is  encouraging. 
The  stoppage  of  all  exchange  of  itziboos  at  this  period  is  look- 
ed upon  by  the  merchants  as  a  great  evil.f  The  whole  trade 
iu  this  year,  after  the  opening  of  the  ports,  has  exceeded  a  mil- 
lion sterling,  from  which,  I  have  reason  to  believe,  very  large 
profits  have  been  realized,  and  comparatively  by  a  small  num- 
ber of  merchants — Englisli,  Dutch,  and  American  chiefly,  the 
former  well  maintaining  their  traditional  predominance  here, 
as  elsewhere  in  the  East. 

'  In  other  respects  much  has  been  gained,  if  much  still  re- 
main to  be  achieved.  As  regards  our  Political  and  Diplomatic 
relations — only  important  in  these  remote  regions  from  their 
bearing  0:1  our  Commercial  interests  here  and  in  the  Eastern 
seas  generally — and  the  actual  position  of  the  Foreign  Repre- 
sentatives at  Yeddo,  there  is,  indeed,  much  to  be  accomplished 
yet.  Life  and  property  both  have  been  through  the  whole  pe- 
riod very  insecure.  Incendiarism,  unchecked  by  punishment, 
lias  been  frequent  and  disastrous  at  Nagasaki.  Neither  re- 
dress nor  compensation  could  be  obtained,  and  but  small  secu- 
rity for  the  future.  Life  has  been  repeatedly  taken  at  Yoko- 
hama and  at  Yeddo  with  perfect  impunity.  Six  individuals 
have  been  murdered  successively,  by  ones  and  twos,  with  cir- 

*  Some  information  I  obtained  during  a  journey  in  the  interior  the  follow- 
ing year  confirmed  me  in  this  conclusion. 

t  It  i^roved,  nevertheless,  to  be  the  means  by  which  the  first  impulse  was 
given  to  an  import  trade,  and  it  has  gone  on  largely  increasing  since.  Nor 
was  there  much  unanimity  of  opinion  on  this  subject  among  the  merchants 
themselves.  See  Report  of  a  Public  Meeting  at  Yokohama  for  farther  in- 
formation, Appendix  B. 


Chap.XVIU.J  a  moral  QUARAlJTiNfi.  n27 

cumstances  of  great  barbarity,  and,  to  all  appearance,  withitut 
any  provocation.  According  to  common  report  among  llie 
Japanese,  they  were  political  murders,  deliberately  planned  and 
executed  for  political  purposes  in  all,  perhaps,  save  tliat  of  my 
linguist,  who  had  something  like  a  personal  feud  with  the  most 
dangerous  class  in  Japan— the  Daimios'  retainers,  though  he  w  as 
undoubtedly  obnoxious  to  the  Government  too,  as  one  capable 
of  furnishing  me  with  information  not  otherwise  attainable  by 
a  foreigner.  As  for  the  Foreign  Representatives  themselves, 
besides  being  exposed  to  similar  danger,  with  like  objects  in 
the  assailants,  the  members  of  the  several  Legations  are  all  (in 
thorough  accordance  Avith  the  policy  of  the  preceding  three 
centuries)  put  in  moral  quarantine,  and  a  cordon  follows  them 
wherever  they  go,  permitting  no  respectable  Japanese  or  na- 
tive of  tlic  educated  and  higher  classes  to  apj)roach  them !  In 
vain  the  resi)ective  Ministers  have  protested,  and  some,  at 
least,  persistently  and  energetically  have  fouglit  against  the 
system ;  but  the  Japanese  government  have  such  infinite  re- 
sources and  means  at  their  disposal  for  giving  effect  to  any 
policy  of  this  nature,  that  we  are  always  at  a  great  disadvant- 
age, and,  it  must  be  confessed,  have  been  hitherto,  as  was  to 
be  expected,  signally  worsted  in  nearly  every  struggle  to  break 
through  the  toils  of  the  hunter. 

'  This  systematic  and  persistent  policy  of  isolation  and  re- 
striction in  regard  to  all  foreigners  in  the  country — the  Mer- 
chants at  the  ports  and  the  Ministers  in  the  capital,  and 
against  all  nations  impartially  and  unchangeably,  together  with 
a  certain  insecurity  to  life  and  denial  of  justice  when  either  life 
or  property  may  have  been  sacrificed — are  among  the  great- 
est difficulties  still  to  be  encountered.  And  judging  by  the 
amount  and  successful  nature  oftlie  resistance  offered,  and  the 
failure  of  all  the  effoi-ts  of  the  Foreign  Legations,  separately 
and  collectively,  to  effect  any  sensible  change  or  amelioration, 
it  is  evident  they  are  difiiculties  which  will  endure,  and,  for  a 
long  time  to  come,  be  the  hardest  to  grapple  with  successfully. 
Yet  there  is  nothing  in  the  first  twelve  months'  experience 
more  strongly  impressed  upon  my  mind  than  the  conviction 
that,  until  ue  do  succeed  in  tfu's,  no  permanent  or  sure  prog- 
ress can  well  be  made.  While  we  are  isolated  by  a  cordon 
of  Japanese  ofliicials  from  the  whole  population,  and  debarred 
all  free  intercourse  both  with  the  mass  and  the  higher  classes, 
our  relations  must  of  necessity  rest  on  a  basis  as  insecure  as  it 
is  unsatisfactory.  "We  are,  and  always  shall  be,  at  the  mercy 
of  the  Government  of  the  day,  and  may  be  massacred  at  any 
moment,  at  a  given  hour,  the  turn  of  the  Tycoon's  fan  for  a 


^2fi  tllUEE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [(^hap.  XIX. 

signal,  at  the  mere  will  of  whoever,  for  the  time  being,  controls 
or  directs  the  Executive.  All  the  more  certainly,  that  the 
whole  tendency  of  this  system  has  been  astutely  calculated  to 
keep  us  defenseless,  by  shutting  us  out  from  all  the  sources  of 
information,  and  insuring  our  ignorance  of  every  thing  which 
it  most  concerned  the  Foreign  Representatives  to  know,  wheth- 
er as  regarded  national  interests  or  their  own  safety.  I  con- 
sider this  the  great  problem,  therefore,  in  the  existing  relations 
between  Japan  and  the  Western  Powers,  much,  if  not  all, 
that  is  yet  uncertain  in  the  future  hanging  upon  the  solution 
it  may  receive.  In  the  mean  time,  living  among  scenes  and 
with  a  race  where  it  may  truly  be  said,  "  Life's  life  is  lied 
away,"  and  "  Murder  breathes  her  bloody  steam,"  we  must 
take  the  ancient  words  of  Plutarch  for  our  motto,  "  Courage 
against  Fury !" ' 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Audience  of  the  Tycoon. — Preliminary  Difficulties. — Importance  in  the  East 
of  seeming  Trifles. 

Toward  the  end  of  August,  in  1860,  a  day  was  fixed  for  my 
audience  with  the  Tycoon, '  The  most  High,  Mighty,  and  Glo- 
rious Prince,  His  Imperial  and  Royal  Majesty,'  as  he  is  styled 
in  the  Queen's  letter  accrediting  Her  Majesty's  Envoy  Extra- 
ordinary and  Minister  Pleiiipotentijiry  to  the  Court  of  Yeddo, 
the  delivery  of  which  to  the  Tycoon  in  person  was  the  object 
of  the  audience. 

It  had  been  more  than  six  months  in  my  hands,  waiting  the 
settlement  of  a  'difficulty'  which  had  arisen  with  the  Resident 
Minister  of  the  United  States,  respecting  the  manner  of  his  re- 
ception about  the  same  time  the  preceding  year,  when  he 
thought  there  was  a  marked  want  of  observance  and  ceremony 
in  the  whole  of  the  arrangements,  compared  with  the  reception 
he  had  received  when  he  first  came  to  Yeddo  to  deliver  the 
President's  letter,  prior  to  his  entering  on  his  negotiations  for 
a  treaty.  No  pains  had  been  taken  to  keep  his  passage  to  the 
palace  free,  and  his  norimon  was  hustled,  and  he  himself  in- 
commoded in  a  most  unseemly  way,  by  the  retainers,  grooms, 
and  servants  hanging  about  the  outer  courts  of  the  palace  as 
he  ])assed  in.  Not  desiring  to  interpose  any  obstacle  to  his 
arriving  at  a  satisfactory  conclusion,  and  obtaining  the  amende 
honorable  he  had  demanded  by  another  audience  under  more 


CUAP.  XIX.]  SEEMING  TRIFLES.  829 

fitting  conditions  and  ceremonial,  unaffected  by  any  precedent 
which  might  be  created  by  any  of  his  colleagues,!  had  deferred 
taking  any  steps  for  my  own  reception.  I  did  so  the  more 
willingly,  Mr.  Harris  having  consulted  oflficially  with  me  on  the 
subject,  and  communicated  both  the  offense  offered,  and  the 
steps  he  proposed  taking  in  vindication  of  the  honor  and  dig- 
nity of  his  Government.  I  considered  him  perfectly  right  in 
not  passing  over  what  we  neither  of  us  doubted  was  intended 
as  a  slight  iri  the  eyes  of  the  Japanese  Court,  including  all  the 
Daimios  and  retainers  on  the  spot.  In  Eastern  courts  it  is  pre- 
cisely by  such  studied  slights  and  insults,  often  veiled  under  a 
pretense  of  showing  honor,  and  always  denied  when  they  are 
found  out,  that  Eastern  diplomacy  seeks  to  avenge  itself  on 
Foreign  Powers  for  the  humiliation  of  receiving  their  Repre- 
sentatives, or  holding  any  relations  with  foreigners  at  all,  ex- 
cept as  tribute-bearers  or  suppliants !  And  as  the  knowledge 
any  European  can  possess,  in  the  first  instance,  of  the  etiquette, 
forms,  and  customs  of  an  Eastern  court  —  more  especially 
where,  as  in  Japan,  our  relations  are  new — must  be  very  slight 
and  imperfect,  they  feel  and  know  their  advantage,  and  are 
generally  disposed  to  press  it  to  the  utmost,  by  imposing  upon 
an  Ambassador  some  mockery  of  their  forms,  which  is  alleged 
to  be  in  accordance  with  their  customs,  while  it  is,  in  fact,  the 
reverse,  and  calculated  to  humiliate  and  degrade  in  the  eyes 
of  the  natives.  It  may  be  something  seemingly  frivolous  or 
indifferent  in  itself  whether  the  robe  of  the  foreigner  be  blue 
or  yellow,  whether  his  head  be  covered  or  bare,  the  courtiers 
in  full  costume  or  in  morning  wrappers,  their  slippers  on  or 
off,  their  trowsers  to  the  ankle  or  a  yard  longer  to  conceal  their 
feet* — it  matters  very  little  what ;  the  only  question  for  a  For- 
eign Representative  is,  whether  the  forms  and  customs  adopt- 
ed are  such  as,  according  to  established  customs  and  etiquette 
of  the  country,  would  be  held  to  indicate  respect,  or  insult  and 
humiliation  ?  For  the  prestige  of  the  nation  so  treated  in  the 
person  of  its  Representative,  and  his  own  personal  influence 
and  weight  at  the  Court  where  he  is  accredited,  will  be  determ- 
ined by  these  seemingly  indifferent  matters.  This,  of  course, 
will  appear  obvious  enough  to  any  sensible  person  on  reflec- 
tion, and  is  matter  of  notoriety  and  universal  experience  among 
those  who  have  lived  among  Asiatics;  but  it  is  just  one  of 
those  subjects  which  offer  a  tempting  handle  to  newspaper 
writers,  who,  sometimes  from  ignorance,  but  often  (counting 
upon  the  ignorance  of  their  readers)  with  mischievous  intent, 
seek  to  damage  a  public  servant,  or  the  Government  which 
•  The  official  costume  in  grand  ceremouics  of  the  Tycoon's  Court. 


330  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XIX. 

employs  him.  It  is  always  easy  to  hold  up  such  matters  to 
ridicule  as  idle  pretensions,  springing  from  an  exaggerated  es- 
timate of  personal  importance  on  the  part  of  the  individual 
agent,  although  it  must  presuppose  a  greater  amount  of  fatu- 
ity than  usually  falls  to  the  share  of  men  holding  public  ap- 
pointments of  trust  and  responsibility  to  assume  that  any  per- 
sonal feeling  enters  into  the  question.  There  are  not  many  Eu- 
ropeans who  could  feel  it  individually,  and  as  regarded  them- 
selves, apart  from  their  office,  worthy  of  a  moment's  thought, 
whether  an  Eastern  potentate  or  his  Minister  received  them  in 
slippers  and  dressing-gown,  if  it  involved  no  moral  apprecia- 
tion or  political  consequences.  The  tendency  is,  in  truth,  all 
the  other  way.  We  care  so  little  what  Easterns,  with  whom 
we  have  no  really  social  or  sympathetic  rel.itions,  and  no  free 
intercourse  of  any  kind,  actually  think  of  us,  and  we  can,  in  re- 
ality, know  so  little  of  their  true  sentiments,  or  what  they  say 
and  do  among  themselves  in  connection  with  us,  that,  unless  it 
be  known  there  is  an  intention  to  offer  insult,  diplomatic  agents, 
political  residents,  and  all  other  European  functionaries  cm- 
ployed  from  Constantinople  to  Yeddo  are  much  more  disposed 
to  consider  them  in  the  light  of  barbarians,  whose  ceremonials 
and  ideas  of  honor  are  all  so  many  puerilities.  They  are  in 
danger  of  erring  in  the  opposite  direction,  by  inattention  to 
forms,  to  which  the  native  authorities  often  attach  immense  im- 
portance, and  thus  either  give  offense  by  neglect,  or  put  up,  in 
ignorance,  with  treatment  which  lowers  and  degrades  them  in 
Eastern  eyes,  Iluuian  nature  remains  the  same  in  all  climes ; 
and  wliether  rubbing  of  noses,  a  particular  costume,  or  pre- 
scribed contortions  and  postures  of  the  body,  be  considered 
marks  of  respect  and  amity,  or  of  scorn  and  insult,  between 
men,  may  be  very  indifferent ;  but  it  can  never  be  a  matter  of 
indifference  which  of  the  two  sentiments  are  intended  to  he  ex- 
pressed  hy  any  of  these  in  the  relations  of  Foreign  Represent- 
atives and  Eastern  potentates.  It  might,  in  one  sense,  be  very 
indifferent  whether  Lord  Macartney,  our  first  Ambassador  to 
Pekin,  was  preceded  by  Chinese  flag-bearers,  supposed  to  be  in 
his  honor,  and  with  flags  written  over  with  characters  which 
described  the  Embassy  as  humble  '  bearers  of  tribute  to  the 
Lord  of  all  Kings,'  but  the  political  consequences  and  influ- 
ences may  not  have  been  washed  out  with  the  blood  of  two 
■wars.  It  may  not  have  been  very  material,  so  far  as  the  Amer- 
ican Minister,  Mr.  Ward,  was  personally  concerned,  whether  he 
jolted  over  the  roads  between  Peihtang  and  Pekin  in  a  vehi- 
cle unfitted  for  one  in  his  position ;  but  the  influence  on  the 
population,  the  court,  and  his  own  action  and  power  to  enforce 


Chap.  XIX.]  PERFECT  UNDERSTANDING.  331 

respect  for  treaties  and  a  nation's  rights  Avould  assuredly  be 
felt,  and  disad\  antageously,  in  every  after  transaction. 

Thus  much  it  seemed  desirable  to  say  on  a  subject  of  no 
small  importance  in  the  larger  question  of  European  diplomacy 
and  Eastern  policy,  not  very  generally  or  well  understood  any 
where  in  Europe.  Believing  Mr.  Han-is  to  be  perfectly  right 
in  resenting  what  had  taken  place  and  insisting  upon  an  amende, 
I  waited  patiently,  tlierefore,  for  the  end  of  the  affair.  The 
obstinacy  of  the  resistance  on  the  part  of  the  Council  of  State 
was  a  clear  proof  to  my  mind,  if  any  farther  proof  had  been 
wanting,  that  a  slight  had  been  intended ;  not,  indeed,  that  the 
American  should  see  and  know  it,  but  merely  that  the  specta- 
cle should  be  given  to  the  Japanese  in  how  little  estimation 
Foreign  Representatives  were  held  by  the  Tycoon  and  his  Gov- 
ernment, and  that  any  small  Daimio  was  entitled  to  more  con- 
sideration and  respect.  And  it  was  precisely  this  public  de- 
preciation which  it  behooved  all  the  cwyw  diplomatique  com- 
bined, if  necessary,  seriously  to  resist  and  have  as  publicly  re- 
versed. In  this  there  was,  fortunately,  a  perfect  accord  among 
the  only  three  Diplomatic  Agents  in  Yeddo,  the  American, 
French,  and  English  ;  and,  indeed,  in  all  the  questions  M'hich 
ai'ose  during  the  first  eighteen  months,  it  was  a  subject  of  con- 
gratulation, and  undoubtedly  a  great  advantage  to  all,  that  this 
general  accordance  of  views  was  constant.  And  when,  after 
that  period,  thoie  was  a  broad  divergence,  and  the  Minister  of 
the  United  Stales  took  one  view  in  a  grave  question  of  national 
or  rather  Western  policy,  and  the  Representatives  of  all  the 
other  Treaty  Powers — England,  France,  Holland,  and  Prussia, 
another,  it  was  to  me,  as  I  am  sure  it  must  have  been  to  all,  a 
subject  of  great  regret.  As  unity  of  sentiment  and  policy 
among  the  Foreign  Representatives  must  always  be  a  great 
element  of  strength  in  dealing  with  an  Eastern  Power,  so  will 
disunion  and  divergence  of  views  necessarily  be  a  source  of 
weakne.-^s.  Previously  to  this  unfortunate  schism,  the  only  dif- 
ference had  been  a  greater  disposition  on  Mr.  Harris's  part  to 
think  favorably  of  the  Government,  and  to  give  them  credit  for 
more  of  good  faith  and  sincerity  than  any  of  his  colleagues 
thought  ju8tifie<l  by  ilieir  acts  and  tlie  course  of  events.  But 
this  was  only  natural,  perhaps,  in  the  circumstances  in  which 
Mr.  Harris  had  been  placed.  To  the  Japanese  he  owed  a  great 
diplomatic  suc^cess,  as  the  negotiator  of  the  first  commercial 
treaty^  by  which  both  Trade  and  Diplomatic  relations  were  es- 
tablished, while  on  his  colleagues  devolved  the  less  agreeable 
and  less  easy  task  of  reducing  treati(?s  made  by  others  to  work- 
ing realities.  As  they  had  daily  experience  of  the  obstructions 
created  by  the  Japanese  Government,  from  the  Council  of  State 


,^32  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XIX. 

down  to  the  lowest  official  or  Yaconin  about  the  Legations,  they 
very  naturally  saw  less  to  admire  in  the  friendly  expressions 
of  Ministers.  It  was  perhaps  inevitable  that  the  two  should 
look  with  different  eyes  upon  the  course  of  the  Government  to 
which  they  were  accredited,  and  be  disposed  to  apply  a  differ- 
ent test  to  its  assurances  of  good  will,  and  cordial  desire  to  pro- 
vide for  our  security  and  give  execution  to  treaties.  Deeds, 
not  words,  foi-m  an  experimentum,  crucis  before  which  all  pro- 
fessions are  apt  to  lose  much  of  their  value ;  and  when  the 
deeds  are  wholly  inconsistent  with,  and  often  in  utter  contra- 
diction to  the  words  of  promise,  it  is  not  easy,  where  there  is 
no  personal  predilection  or  foregone  conclusion  biasing  the 
judgment,  to  believe  in  the  good  faith  or  sincerity  of  those 
who  are  responsible  for  both.  I  say  responsible  for  both ;  but 
for  the  second  Mr.  Harris  often  found  excuses,  in  the  want  of 
power  which  he  attributed  to  the  Tycoon  and  his  Council  to 
give  such  fulfillment,  or  even  to  prevent  acts  directly  affecting 
the  security  of  life  and  property,  and  violating  the  first  condi- 
tions of  a  treaty  of  amity  and  commerce,  or,  indeed,  of  any  per- 
manent and  peaceable  relations. 

The  full  development  of  this  original  cause  of  divergence  into 
a  manifest  and  avowed  want  of  unity  in  action  and  thought 
was  yet  to  come ;  and,  in  the  mean  time,  both  the  French 
Charge  d' Affiiires  and  myself  gave  the  Ministers  distinctly  to 
understand  that  we  did  not  desire  our  respective  audiences 
until  they  had  satisfactorily  arranged  with  the  Minister  of  the 
United  States  the  conditions  and  ceremonial  such  as  he  could 
accept,  for  the  farther  reception  he  had  required,  and  that  we 
were  in  entire  accord  with  him  on  the  subject.  At  last,  after 
negotiations  and  conferences  which  seemed  well-nigh  interm- 
inable, a  programme  having  been  agreed  upon  with  Mr.  Harris, 
it  was  presented  to  me  and  accepted.  By  this  the  whole  cere- 
monial, from  the  door  of  the  Legations  to  the  palace  and  back 
again,  was  fixed. 

Mr.  Harris  had  his  audience  first,  as  had  been  previously  ar- 
ranged, and,  his  report  being  satisfactory,  a  day  was  fixed  for 
the  British  Minister.  I  could  certainly  have  desired  that  it 
had  not  been  a  broiling  day  in  August  under  an  Eastern  sun,  but 
these  things  must  be  taken  as  they  come.  According  to  pre- 
concerted arrangements,  Takimoto  Dzoosiono  Kami,  one  of  the 
eight  Governors  of  Foreign  Affairs,  arrived  soon  after  Y  A.M. 
to  conduct  the  procession  to  the  palace,  an  hour  and  a  half's 
course  in  a  norimon.  In  a  few  minutes  the  cortege  was  en 
route.  First,  the  Governor  and  his  suite,  then  the  British  Min- 
ister and  the  members  of  the  Legation,  Japanese  and  British, 
with  standard,  spear,  and  umbrella  bearers,  led  horses,  and  a 


CuAJ'.  XIX.] 


PROGRESS  TO  THE  PALACE. 


333 


considerable  following  of  Tycoon's  officers,  uccoi\lino;  to  llie 
custom  of  the  country,  when  men  of  rank  or  high  officials  ap- 
pear in  public.  The  whole  way,  through  some  four  miles  of 
streets,  was  kept  clear  by  the  ward  constables  with  their  iron 
staves  and  jingling  rings,  aided  by  a  large  addition  of  Tycoon's 
officers,  and  in  the  official  quarter  by  the  retainers  of  the  re- 
spective Dairaios  as  we  passed  their  several  residences.  All 
traffic  was  either  stopped  or  turned  out  of  the  course  of  the  pro- 
cession. The  inferior  and  unprivileged  classes  were  stopped, 
and  officials  made  to  pass  by  the  side  outside  the  line.  The 
authorities  kept  their  word  loyalement  for  once,  and  the  whole 
way  there  and  back  this  order  was  strictly  observed.  Arrived 
within  the  third  moated  inclosure  we  came  to  another  bridge, 
high  above  the  level  of  the  lower  causeway,  leading  directly  to 
that  part  where  the  Tycoon  kept  his  court  while  his  own  pal- 
ace was  being  rebuilt.  Here  we  had  to  leave  our  norinions 
and  cross  the  bridge  on  foot,  the  gentlemen  with  me  having 
descended  at  a  previous  station — no  Daimio  or  officer,  we  were 
told,  being  allowed  to  pass  over  the  bridge  otherwise  than  on 
foot. 

Passing  through  the  massive  gateway,  with  bastions  flanking 
a  walled  enceinte  built  of  great  blocks  of  gi-anite,  a  five  minute's 
walk,  still  preceded  by  Takimoto  Kami,  brought  me  to  the  en- 
trance of  the  palace.  A  sort  of  large  vestibule,  opening  into 
a  close  couit-yard  of  no  great  extent,  and  the  exact  counterpart 
of  the  only  Daimios'  residences  to  which  Foreigners  have  had 
access — those  of  the  Ministers — gave  entrance  to  the  palace. 
Here,  our  servants  having  brought  some  camp-stools  expressly 
sent,  to  provide  seats  where  there  were  none,  we  changed  our 
shoes,  that  we  might  not  mark  the  trim  mats  of  the  palace,  or 
enter  the  royal  presence 
in  unseemly  guise.  Fa- 
cing us  in  the  square 
apartment  forming  an  in- 
ner hall,  some  fifty  offi- 
cials, all  in  gauze  and 
silks,  were  on  their  knees, 
and  in  front  of  these 
several  of  the  Governors 
of  Foreign  Affiiirs,  dis- 
guised in  a  court  costume 
so  quaint  and  strange, 
and  so  utterly  bizarre  to 
European  eyes,  that  I  had 
some  difficulty  in  recog- 
nizing my  old  acquaint-  codkt  dbkss  op  jkvktxt.sk. 


334  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XIX. 

anccs,  and  still  more  in  repressing  a  smile  when  the  recogni- 
tion took  place.  How  shall  I  describe  it?  Nothing  but  the 
pencil  can  convey  a  true  notion  of  what  it  is,  or  rather  what 
Its  effect  is,  to  any  one  who  has  not  seen  the  reality. 

To  begin  with  the  head,  the  shaven  and  usually  bare  crown 
had  perched  upon  the  top  what  I  suppose  must  be  called  a  cap, 
for  want  of  any  more  appropriate  name,  made  of  black  lackered 
papier-mache.  In  shape  it  appears  like  a  boat  turned  bottom 
up,  with  one  half  cut  off  and  the  edges  folded  in.  The  surcoat 
of  gauze,  projecting  at  the  shoulders,  and  called  in  Japanese 
the  Kamisima^  partially  conceals  a  robe  of  darker  hue,  beneath 
which  again  a  pair  of  Turkish  trowsers,  or  petticoat  rather,  of 
figured  silk,  the  IIaJc(i-))ia,  is  slit  open  at  the  sides  to  allow  the 
outer  robe  to  be  tucked  in,  and  socui'ed  at  the  waist  by  a  broad 
belt,  through  which  the  two  swords,  the  one  long  and  the  other 
short,  are  passed.  But  the  most  singular  part  of  the  whole 
costume,  and  that  which,  added  to  the  head-gear,  gave  an  irre- 
sistibly comic  air  to  the  whole  presentment,  was  the  immeas- 
urable prolongation  of  the  silk  trowsers.  These,  instead  of  stop- 
ping short  at  the  heels,  are  unconscionably  lengthened,  and  left 
to  trail  two  or  three  feet  behind  them,  so  that  their  feet,  as  they 

advanced,  seemed  pushed 
into  what  should  have  been 
the  knees  of  the  garment. 
The  consequence  was,  that 
they  were  compelled  to 
shuffle  along  like  so  many 
people  shorn  by  some  gen- 
eral calamity  of  both  legs, 
and  walking  upon  their 
stumps,  much  as  a  man  cut 
down  to  his  knees  might 
be  expected  to  progress,  an 
JAPANESE  'LOKDs  IN  WAITING.'         effcct   Still  fartUr  height- 

ened  by  said  prolongations  trailing  behind  on  the  floor,  col- 
lapsed and  evidently  empty.  It  certainly  required  some  com- 
mand of  countenance  to  follow  gravely  these  high  ofiicers  in 
such  a  masquerading  costume ;  and  how  they  managed  to 
shufile  on,  without  tumbling  at  each  step,  was  all  but  incom- 
prehensible. I  have  seen  none  of  the  Japanese  conjurors  do 
any  thing  better. 

Thus  preceded,  we  were  ushered  into  an  anteroom,  where 
all  the  Governors  of  Foreign  Affairs  came  to  make  their  sal- 
utation. Then  all  the  high  Ometskys  of  the  palace,  to  the  num- 
ber of  some  seven  or  eight,  were  presented  in  form — the '  look- 


Chap.  XIX.]  THE  TYCOON'S  PALACE!.  335 

ers  through,'  who  are  supposed  to  see  and  to  note  every  thiug 
for  the  information  of  the  Government.  These  were  followed 
by  the  heads  of  the  Treasury  and  Mint.  A  few  minutes  were 
thus  passed,  while  cups  of  tea  were  handed  round  and  the  ar- 
rival of  the  British  Minister  was  being  announced  to  the  Coun- 
cil of  State,  and  by  them  to  the  Tycoon.  The  room  was  of 
twenty-eight  mats  (so  they  measure  rooms  in  Japan,  each  mat 
being  of  regulation  size,  the  larger  six  feet  by  three),  of  no 
great  pretensions,  yet  handsome  withal.  If  the  walls  were  not 
covered  with  chef-d''<xuvres  from  the  Gobelins,  or  the  pencil  of 
a  Titian  or  Correggio,  the  sliding  panels  or  screens,  of  which 
the  partitions  are  always  formed  in  Japanese  houses,  presented 
pictures  dashed  off  with  a  free  pencil,  and  which  had  at  least 
the  merit  of  singularity — birds  soaring  in  skies  of  gold,  trees 
rising  out  of  equally  effulgent  seas  (or  hills  indifferently),  with 
a  dreamy  sort  of  vagueness  as  to  the  respective  limits  of  earth, 
sky,  or  water,  though  all  were  evidently  intended  to  appear. 
The  floor  was  of  matting,  in  the  usual  way,  each  mat  edged 
with  a  border  of  figured  silk,  the  effect  of  which  is  by  no  means 
bad.  The  ceiling  was  lackered,  and  divided  into  square  com- 
partments, deeply  cut,  with  gold  and  colored  leaves  embossed 
in  lacker  forming  the  centres,  not  unlike  our  older  Gothic  ceil- 
ings. Some  elaborate,  but  rather  coarse  carving  tilled  up  cer- 
tain spaces  running  round  one  side  of  the  room,  between  the 
ceiling  and  the  tops  of  the  sliding  panels,  which  are  seldom 
higher  than  six  feet  from  the  ground,  as  tall  Saxons  and  Celts 
have  found  to  their  cost  many  times.  When  Admiral  Hope 
was  at  the  Legation  I  was  always  in  anxiety  for  his  head,  and 
H.  M.'s  Consul  at  Kanagawa  fairly  tried  the  strength  of  his 
skull  against  the  sharp  edge  of  the  traversing  beam,  and  meas- 
ured his  length  backward  on  the  ground  under  a  blow  that 
might  have  killed  a  weaker  man.*  On  the  side  of  the  room 
opposite  the  entrance,  a  very  narrow  court,  or  passage  rather, 
open  to  the  sky,  let  in  light  and  air  from  .above,  and  was  evi- 
dently there  for  that  purpo.se  only,  none  coming  from  any  oth- 
er quarter.  By  the  time  I  had  made  these  observations,  I  was 
invited  to  move  forward  through  a  corridor  lined  with  kneel- 
ing attendants  some  two  or  three  deep,  until  I  reached  another 
and  smaller  room,  or  rather  an  angle  screened  off,  where  I  had 
to  wait  until  the  signal  should  he  given  that  the  Tycoon  was 
seated  in  the  audience  hall. 

*  Upon  a  later  occasion,  Mr.  Oliphant,  the  Secretary  of  Lcpation,  owed 
his  life  to  this  pecnliarity  of  construction,  every  blow  ainiad  at  his  head  with 
the  two-handed  sword,  in  his  rencounter  in  the  passafw  with  some  of  the  as> 
aassins,  being  tttrned  aside  in  the  dark  by  the  low  trarerse  beam. 


336  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XIX. 

The  detention  was  very  short,  and,  emerging  again  into  the 
corridor,  there  was  another  pause  opposite  a  large  room,  filled 
with  more  than  a  hundred  officers  in  grand  ofiicial  costume,  all 
kneeling,  five  and  six  deep,  in  rows,  perfectly  mute,  and  immov- 
able as  statues,  their  heads  just  raised  from  the  floor.  This 
was  the  room,  I  found,  adjoining  the  audience  chamber ;  and 
two  officers  in  the  same  posture,  a  little  in  advance,  were  evi- 
dently watching  for  the  moment  to  give  the  signal  for  our  ad- 
vance. This  followed  almost  immediately,  when  my  usher 
with  the  inexpressible  prolongations  instantly  fell  on  his  hands 
and  knees,  and,  with  his  head  to  the  ground,  turned  the  event- 
ful corner  which  brought  him  into  the  presence.  Upon  the 
whole,  his  costume  seemed  to  gain  in  rationality,  whatever  its 
owner  might  do,  by  the  change  of  postui'e,  for  now  the  same 
silken  continuations  served  to  cover  his  unsandaled  feet,  and, 
to  a  certain  extent,  disguise  what  sort  of  a  being  was  under 
their  foltls.  Following  him  as  close  as  his  drapery  would  al- 
low, I  came  to  the  entrance  of  the  audience  chamber,  which 
was  raised  a  low  step  above  the  level  of  the  corridor,  and  be- 
fore me  I  saw,  some  thirty  feet  ofi",  on  a  kind  of  dais  at  the  far- 
ther end  of  the  room,  the  young  Tycoon.  He  was  seated  on  a 
sort  of  tlirone,  or  square  pedestal,  raised  about  six  feet  from 
the  ground.  He  wore  a  head-dress  something  like  that  of  his 
oflBcers,  and  was  dressed  in  a  silken  robe  of  very  ample  pro- 
portions, in  which  he  appeared  enveloped  from  head  to  foot. 
There  was  only  a  demi-jour  admitted ;  indeed,  this  prevails  in 
all  Japanese  houses,  from  the  absence  of  glass  and  the  want  of 
height  in  all  their  paper-covered  screens,  which  do  the  duty  of 
both  doors  and  windows.  The  light  is  still  farther  obscured 
by  a  projecting  roof,  to  cover  the  inevitable  veranda,  neces- 
sary in  all  cases  to  protect  the  paper  from  the  rain.  It  was 
impossible,  therefore,  even  when  I  approached  much  nearer,  to 
distinguisli  his  features  very  accurately.  But  he  was  evidently 
a  mere  youth,  though  stout  and  large-limbed,  with  a  full  face 
and  rather  heavy  expression.  To  my  right,  below  the  dais, 
three  members  of  the  Great  Council  of  State  were  kneeling  in 
attendance.  One  of  these  was  the  President  and  First  Minis- 
ter of  Foreign  Afiairs,  who  was  to  receive  from  my  hands  the 
letter  of  the  Queen  after  I  had  delivered  my  address.  Behind 
the  Tycoon  was  a  numerous  retinue,  kneeling  in  some  strange 
attitude  I  had  not  seen  before — leaning,  I  think,  upon  their 
sheathed  swords,  as  if  in  the  act  of  springing  to  their  feet — or 
prepared  to  do  so  at  a  signal.  To  the  left  of  me,  also,  a  con- 
siderable number  of  Daimios  and  officers  were  grouped,  all 
kneeling.    Upon  the  whole,  it  was  impossible  not  to  be  struck 


Chap.  XIX.J  THE  AUDIENCE.  337 

with  the  hushed  silence  and  solemn  decorum  of  the  assem- 
blage. Not  a  movement  could  bo  detected,  nor  a  sound  heard, 
until,  as  I  advanced  to  the  centre  of  the  second  mat,  and 
made,  according  to  the  piogramiiic,  my  first  obeisance  by  a 
bow,  when  my  usher  and  nuister  of  the  ceremonies — a  First 
Lord  in  Waiting,  who  was  still  on  his  knees  and  hands  to 
my  right,  and  a  step  or  two  behind  —  announced  me  in  a 
sort  of  lingua  franca — a  remnant  of  former  barbaric  pro- 
cedures with  the  Dutch — something  created  for  the  occasion, 
I  should  think;  it  certainly  was  neither  Japanese  nor  pure 
Dutch,  still  less  English.  It  was  neither 'JJoye'  nor'Tomi/ 
but  it  sounded  something  like  '  Inglesa  Minister.'  This  done, 
he  shuffled  on  two  mats  farther,  while  I  advanced  on,  and, 
pausing,  made  my  second  reverence ;  then  two  more  mats  and 
a  third  bow  brought  me  within  a  few  paces  of  the  presence 
seat.  I  had  been  told  the  prostrate  Usher  of  the  Rod  would  be 
close  to  my  feet  to  take  hold  of  my  trowsers  if  I  forgot  my 
lesson  and  advanced  too  far ;  and  the  Governors  in  waiting 
had  made  divers  efforts,  both  previously  in  the  Legation  and 
on  my  arrival  at  the  palace,  to  induce  me  to  go  through  a  re- 
hearsal in  the  audience  chamber  for  their  satisfaction.  They 
appeared  horribly  afraid  there  might  be  some  step  too  much 
or  too  little.  As  I  declined  going  through  such  mummery, 
they  evidently  were  at  their  wits'  end.  'Would  I  not  like 
before  the  audience  to  see  the  room  ?'  I  supposed  it  was  like 
any  other  large  room  with  mats,  which  I  could  see  as  I  walk- 
ed, and  count,  if  necessary.  '  Oh  no  !  it  was  unlike  any  other 
room,  and  Mr.  Harris  had  gone  to  see  it' — carefully  suppress- 
ing that  they  had,  indeed,  inveigled  him  the  first  time,  but  on 
the  second  occasion,  knowing  their  object,  he  had  resolutely 
resisted  all  their  cajoleries.  However,  I  gave  my  lowly  guide 
no  trouble ;  I  stopped  as  he  stopped,  and  gave  the  Tycoon  his 
stipulated  number  of  reverences,  and,  after  the  last,  delivered 
a  very  short  address,  which  the  Tycoon  answered  still  more 
briefly,  by  what  appeared,  indeed,  three  or  four  words,  al- 
though the  Dutch  translation,  which  had  been  previously 
placed  in  my  hands  by  the  Ministers,  consisted  of  as  many  sen- 
tences. Mr.  Eusden,  the  secretary  in  the  Japanese  depart- 
ment, having  handed  me  the  Queen's  letter  before  I  began  my 
speech,  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  then  rose  and  received 
it  from  my  hands.  I  made  another  reverence,  which  the  Ty- 
coon acknowledged  by  an  inclination  of  his  head,  and  that  was 
the  signal  for  my  retiring,  which  I  did  en  recularit,  bowing  in 
the  same  order  as  when  I  entered.  I  had  been  told  that  I 
might  turn  rotmd,  but  I  said  that  was  contrary  to  our  custom 

P 


338  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XIX. 

before  crowned  licads,  mid,  therefore,  T  should  not  avail  myself 
of  the  permission,  willing  to  sliow  to  the  Tycoon  the  observ- 
ance and  respect  due  to  my  own  Sovereign.  It  nearly  termin- 
ated uutowardly,  however,  for  my  usher.  On  my  stepping 
down  into  the  corridor,  just  before  turning  round  as  I  left  the 
chamber,  he  had  already  gained  liis  feet,  and  was  shuffling 
away  before  me,  leaving  a^  least  a  yard  of  silk  dr:ipery  behind 
liim  trailing  on  the  ground,  when  my  heel  pinned  one  of  these. 
For  a  moment  it  seemed  doubtful  whether  he  nmst  part  com- 
pany with  his  garment,  or  fall  backward  to  save  it.  But,  with 
this  small  misadventure,  all  went  smoothly.  I  retired  to  an- 
other room,  where  I  received  the  congratulations  of  the  Coun- 
cil of  Ministers,  and  then  my  [)arty  wended  its  way  back  as  it 
came,  preceded  by  another  of  the  Governors  of  Foreign  Af- 
fairs, and  we  arrived  at  the  Legation  about  noon.  Immediate- 
ly after,  Oribeno-no-kami,  a  second  Governor  of  Foreign  Afi'airs, 
made  his  appearance  with  a  box  carried  by  eight  men — a  pres- 
ent from  the  Tycoon,  with  which  he  was  specially  charged,  as 
a  time -honored  custom.  On  the  top  was  a  roll  of  dried  iish 
and  sea-weed,  tied  round  by  a  red  and  Avhite  siri;ig  made  of 
twisted  paper,  the  only  string  they  use  —  supposed  to  be  em- 
blematic of  humility,  and  to  remind  the  Japanese  that  they 
were  'once  a  race  of  poor  fishermen,  and  that  by  temperance 
and  frugality  they  had  risen  to  greatness,  which  only  by  such 
virtues  could  be  preserved.'  The  box  contr.ined  a  series  of 
trays,  Avith  a  variety  of  the  most  recJierche  confectionery,  taste- 
fully arranged  in  variegated  rows  and  figures.  The  two  Gov- 
ernors and  chief  interpreter,  Moriyama,  acce])ted  ray  invitation 
to  breakfast,  this  answering  to  their  usual  noon  meal,  and 
seemed  to  enjoy  some  preserved  mutton  and  green  peas,  as 
well  as  the  champagne,  and  did  not  even  refuse  to  eat  —  in 
courtesy  to  their  host,  probably — some  remarkably  tough  beef 
of  Japanese  growth.  I  fear  they  could  make  no  ])retensi()ns 
to  be  considered  good  Buddhists,  nor  have  I  yet  mot  any  of 
the  ofiicial  class  who  do  not  either  feel  or  affect  great  con- 
tempt for  any  creed  but  that  of  Taouists,  or  some  kindred  sect 
of  rationalists  and  skeptics.  jMoriyama  is  an  espe(;ial  admirer 
of  ale  and  coffee  —  the  latter  a  very  general  taste  among  all 
who  came  to  the  Legation  ;  and,  indeed,  nothing  but  oppor- 
tunity is  wanting,  I  fancy,  to  make  the  Japanese  generally  con- 
sumers of  many  of  our  Eurojjean  luxuries — to  the  great  detri- 
ment, it  is  to  be  feared,  of  the  frugality  and  temperance  so 
earnestly  inculcated  as  the  habits  of  their  fishermen  ancestors. 
Perhaps  their  Rulers  are  not  so  far  wrong  in  looking  forward 
with  dread  to  the  time  when  Western  civilization  and  luxu- 


CiiAi-.XIX.]  SPARTAN  SIMPLICITY.  339 

ries  slirill  take  the  place  of  their  own  more  simple  habits  of 
life,  with  no  wants  but  those  which  are  easily  supplied,  and 
that  from  their  own  soil,  without  the  necessity  of  paying  trib- 
ute to  the  foreigner.  How  soon  such  changes  may  come  it  is 
impossible  to  say,  seeing  what  marvelous  progress  has  marked 
the  last  seven  years.  Notwithstanding  their  long  and  reso- 
lutely maintauied  isolation  and  exclusion,  carried  even  into 
their  political  economy,  and  cherished  hi  the  national  mind  as 
their  ark  of  safety  and  the  shibboleth  of  their  independence, 
the  day  has  arrived  when  a  British  Minister  can  take  up  his 
residence  in  the  capital,  and  is  received  by  the  Tycoon,  not  as 
were  the  chiefs  of  the  Dutch  factory  at  Decima  —  long  the 
only  representatives  of  Europe — in  the  days  now  long  passed, 
and  never,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  to  return.  There  is  hope  in  this, 
but  there  is  also  danger;  for  when  were  ever  changes  so 
sudden  and  extreme  made  without  danger  and  risk  of  reac- 
tion? 

I  may  say,  in  conclusion,  that  I  was  struck  with  the  order 
and  decorum  of  all  I  saw  within  the  palace.  As  things  are 
ordered  at  the  levee,  nothing  can  exceed  the  general  simplicity 
of  the  arrangements.  The  suite  of  rooms  and  corridors  are 
unencumberod  with  a  vestige  of  furniture — a  Japanese  noble, 
like  his  serf  or  subject,  as  we  know,  sitting  on  his  heels  and 
eating  off  a  little  lacker  tray  on  legs  standing  only  a  few  inch- 
es from  the  groimd,  while  both  sleep  on  the  mats  of  the  floor 
witli  a  pillow  of  lacker  or  wood  not  larger  than  the  head. 
May  they  not  truly  congratulate  themselves  that  they  have 
well  preserved  the  Spartan  simplicity  of  their  ancestors,  con- 
tent with  the  same  siuiple  fare  of  rice  and  fish,  and  requiring 
no  foreign  luxuries  to  absorb  their  wealth  or  enervate  their 
energies?  The  rooms,  admitting  of  being  opened  their  whole 
width  and  length  ujton  the  ample  corridors  by  merely  remov- 
ing the  sliding  screens,  which  are  the  only  partitions  in  a  Jap- 
anese house,  allow  a  great  display  of  officers  and  attendants 
in  their  costumes  of  ceremony  without  crowding.  Passing 
through  rank  after  rank  of  these,  mute  and  motionless  as  I 
have  described  them,  suddenly,  on  some  signal  apparently, 
there  is  a  general  and  long-prolonged  sibilated  sound  impossi- 
ble to  describe,  something  between  a  'Am'  and  a  long-drawn 
^hish-t?  It  seems  to  circulate  through  the  whole  building  far 
and  near,  and  to  be  echoed  through  all  the  courts  and  corri- 
dors ;  and  is  supposed,  I  fancy,  to  indicate  some  act  or  move- 
ment of  the  Tycoon  bespeaking  i-everence  and  a  hushed  atten- 
tion. It  was  immediately  after  one  of  these  rustlings  of  the 
breeze  of  reverence  vibrating  through  the  lips  of  a  thousand 


340 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  XX. 


sibilating  courtiers,  that  I  received  the  signal  to  advance  to 
the  entrance  of  the  council  chamber.  I  have  never  seen  or 
heard  any  thing  like  it,  or,  indeed,  in  the  least  resembling 
this  strange  but  impi-essive  way  of  bespeaking  profound  rev- 
erence. 


FUSIYAMA   FROM   THE    SUBURBS    OF    YEDDO. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

Change  of  Scene. — A  Pilgrimage  to  Fiisiyama,  and  a  Visit  to  the  Spas  of 

Atami. 

Various  motives  led  me  to  plan  an  expedition  through  the 
interior  of  the  far-famed  sacred  mountain,  and  various  causes 
also  delayed  ray  departure  until  I  had  some  reasons  to  fear  the 
Japanese  Ministers  might  prove  right  in  their  confident  pre- 
dictions that  it  was  too  late  to  accomplish  the  ascent.  August 
was  already  past  and  the  first  days  of  September  were  gliding 
on,  while  I  was  yet  engaged  in  removing  the  obstacles  raised 
by  the  Ministers  themselves  in  the  first  instance,  and  admira- 
bly spread  over  time  and  space  subsequently  by  their  subor- 
dinates, with  a  fertility  of  invention  and  hardihood  of  persist- 
ence which,  if  it  did  not  secure  them  success,  would,  in  a  bet- 
ter cause,  have  entitled  them  to  great  praise. 

There  are  but  two  months  in  the  year,  usually  July  and 
August,  when  the  mountain  is  sufficiently  free  from  snow  to 
permit  the  ascent.  So,  at  least,  the  natives  assert,  who  go  to 
this  snow-capped  and  cloud-enveloped  shrine  of  their  gods  in 
crowds  every  year ;  and,  from  my  subsequent  experience,  I 
should  judge  the  ascent  to  be  well-nigh  impossible  after  any 
snow  has  fallen.  But,  although  they  go  in  numbers,  strangely 
enough  it  is  only  the  poorer  classes,  to  whom,  one  would  sup- 
pose, both  time  and  money  must  be  the  most  difficult  to  com- 


Chap.  XX. J  RESTRICTED  LIBERTY.  341 

mand,  while  the  absence  of  either  would  create  insurmounta- 
ble obstacles.  But  what  will  not  faith  and  energy,  even  a  pa- 
gan's fiiith,  accomplish  ?  It  appears,  if  I  may  believe  the  Min- 
isters, that  it  is  not  considered  consistent  with  the  dignity  of 
a  Daimio,  or  even  an  oflScer  of  any  rank,  to  make  the  pilgrim- 
age, perhaps  because  too  many  of  the  greasy  mob  must  una- 
voidably come  in  close  Contact  with  them.  Be  this  as  it  may, 
it  was  one  of  the  objections  strongly  urged  by  the  Ministers : 
*  It  was  not  fitting  in  a  person  of  the  rank  of  a  British  Envoy 
to  make  the  pilgrimage,  limited  by  custom,  if  not  by  law,  to 
the  lower  classes !'  If  it  be  asked  why  the  Ministers  were  so 
averse  to  my  giving  effect  to  a  plain  stipulation  of  treaties,  by 
which  the  head  of  a  Diplomatic  mission  is  secured,  with  right 
of  residence  in  the  capital,  the  free  right  to  travel  all  over  the 
empire^  I  can  only  reply  that  there  are  many  reasons  apparent 
enough.  But  which  may  have  been  the  most  influential  of 
these,  or  the  real  objection,  is  quite  another  question.  No 
doubt  the  whole  policy  of  the  existing  rulers  is  to  limit  and 
restrict,  as  far  as  possible,  all  locomotion  of  foreigners,  and  all 
intercourse,  commercial  or  social,  with  the  natives.  The  infil- 
tration of  European  ideas,  principles,  and  habits  of  thought, 
felt  to  bo  antagonistic  and  subversive  of  those  heretofore  prev- 
alent, is  not,  in  their  opinion,  a  desirable  consummation,  and, 
so  far  as  in  them  lies,  it  will  be  prevented.  Of  tliis  I  can  have 
no  doubt ;  and  with  this  ever-present  feeling  and  guiding  prin- 
ciple, it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  they  have  from  the  begin- 
ning spared  no  effort  to  create  impediments,  and  place  the 
Foreign  Representatives  especially  (who,  by  treaty  and  diplo- 
matic usage,  could  claim  so  much  more  latitude  of  action  than 
any  others)  in  a  sort  of  moral  quarantine.  It  has  only  been 
by  a  series  of  well-contested  battles,  in  which  much  strategy 
and  perseverance  has  been  displayed  by  the  Japanese,  and 
much  firmness  and  determination  on  the  other  side  has  been 
required,  that  it  has  been  possible  to  secure  any  semblance  of 
liberty  in  the  capital,  where,  to  say  the  truth,  our  presence  was, 
and  is  long  likely  to  be,  particularly  unpalatable  to  all  the  priv- 
ileged classes.  It  was  first  attempted  to  bar  all  traveling  by 
land  to  the  port  of  Kanagawa,  some  seventeen  miles  distant. 
Then,  under  pressure  of  alarm  at  the  danger  of  disaffected  per- 
sons doing  us  personal  injury,  it  was  sought  to  confine  the 
members  of  the  several  Legations  for  an  indefinite  time,  'until 
the  country  was  more  quiet,'  within  the  walls  of  the  residences 
assigned.  To  this  day  no  Japanese  of  education  or  station  can 
pass  within  the  gates,  unless  actually  employed  by  the  Govern- 
ment.    Nor,  indeed,  can  any  Japanese  servant,  workman,  or 


842  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XX 

merchant,  without  a  license,  for'  which,  if  they  have  any  thing 
to  sell,  a  black  mail  is  levied.* 

Despite  all  difiiculties,  this  first  attempt  of  any  Foreign  Rep- 
resentative to  make  the  treaty  clause  securing  the  right  of 
travel  a  reality^  succeeded,  and,  on  September  the  4th,  a  party 
of  eight  started  from  the  British  Consulate  at  KanagaMa, 
which,  being  a  day's  journey  on  the  road,  had  been  made  the 
rendezvous.  Besides  the  permanent  stafi"  of  the  Legation,  I 
had  the  advantage  of  being  accompanied  by  Lieutenant  Rob- 
inson, of  the  Indian  navy,  provided  with  a  few  instruments  for 
the  purpose  of  scientific  observations,  and  a  practical  botanist 
in  the  person  of  Mr.  Veitch,  a  son  of  the  well-known  Loudon 
horticulturist.  This  I  deemed  especially  fortunate,  as  Sir  Wil- 
liam Ilooker  had  written  to  say  it  was  an  object  of  great  in- 
terest to  botanists  to  learn  something  of  the  mountain  vegeta- 
tion of  Japan,  and  esjjecially  Fusiyama,  of  which  nothing  ab- 
solutely was  known.  I  felt  it  no  breach  of  treaty  to  attach 
temporarily  to  the  Legation  such  provisional  members,  nor 
did  the  Government  take  any  exception,  or  attempt  to  limit, 
in  any  way,  the  number  of  my  suite. 

Traveling  in  Japan,  unless  as  a  pedestrian  and  one  of  the 
unprivileged  classes,  is  not  altogether  a  simple  matter ;  espe- 
cially is  it  not  so  when  a  large  party  of  Europeans  go  togeth- 
er, and  intend  to  be  away  some  weeks.  Every  additional  unit 
added  to  the  number  involves  transport  and  commissariat  ar- 
rangements, which  seem  to  increase,  not  in  arithmetical,  but 
in  geometrical  rates  of  progression !  Accordingly,  before  I 
mounted  myself,  I  marked  with  dismay  a  seemingly  endless 
line  of  baggage  animals,  indulging  in  the  most  vehement  and 
eccentric  protests  against  their  burdens,  which  boded  no  good 
to  any  thing  fragile,  and  led  horses  issuing  out  of  the  gates 
accompanied  by  their  keepers.  Servants  and  followers  of 
every  denomination,  under  every  imaginable  pretext,  had,  I 
found,  attached  themselves,  and  apparently  without  limit,  to  the 
party.     The  expedition  had  evidently  risen  in  popular  favor, 

*  After  tlie  event,  it  was  referred  to  by  writers  in  the  local  papers  of  China 
and  Japan,  seldom  disposed  to  see  any  good  in  the  acts  or  the  motives  of  of- 
ficials, as  a  wanton  outrape  to  the  feelings  of  the  Japanese,  and  a  source  of 
danger  to  foreigners  generally ;  while  others,  again,  made  it  a  reproach  to 
the  British  Minister  that  he  himself  exercised  a  privilege  which  he  denied  to 
the  rest  of  his  countrymen.  Both  charges  admit  of  a  very  simple  answer. 
The  right  of  traveling  through  tlie  empire  was  secured  by  treaty  to  Diplo- 
matic Agents,  and  denied  to  all  others  ;  and  the  right  was  stipulated  for  and 
insisted  upon  that  it  miglit  he  exercised,  and  thus  gradually  break  down  the 
barriers  to  frcse  intercourse  witli  the  people,  and  give  access  to  the  interior, 
which  it  was  not  judged  expedient  to  attempt  by  other  means. 


Chap.  XX] 


IMPEDIMENTA. 


343 


HOW   JAPANESE    UEA8T8    OF    BDKDK.S    cuMlultX   THEMSELVES. 

once  the  objections  of  the  authorities  had  been  put  aside.  To 
make  a  pilgrimage  to  Fusiyama  is  an  act  of  virtue  with  the 
natives,  to  which  deliverance  from  misfortune  and  sickness  at- 
taches ;  and  an  opportunity  of  doing  this  at  my  expense  in- 
stead of  their  own,  and  enjoying  a  holiday  at  the  same  time, 
with  an  additional  chance  of  service  and  good  wages,  was  alto- 
gether too  much  to  be  resisted.  Even  the  Government  oflScials 
ordered  to  accompany  me,  and  my  most  troublesome  impedi- 
ments in  the  beginning,  at  last  discovered  that  I  had  chosen  a 
propitious  time  for  my  expedition,  and  evinced  the  greatest 
alacrity  when  it  became  inevitable,  and  their  part  of  obstruct- 
ives had  been  played  out.  So  I  was,  perhaps,  to  be  considered 
fortunate,  on  the  whole,  that  my  commissariat  did  not  quite 
take  the  proportions  of  an  Indian  detachment  on  a  line  of 
marcli.  Although  I  had  especially  stipulated  for  the  absence 
of  any  paiade,  and  desired  to  dispense  with  an  accompanying 
escort,  wishing  on  all  accounts  to  travel  as  much  as  possible  in 
a  private  capacity,  the  Government's  declared  anxiety  for  my 
security  (along  roads  they  persisted  in  considering  dangerous) 
made  the  company  of  a  certain  number  of  officials  inevitable. 
A  Vice-Governor,  three  or  four  Yaconins  (officers  of  the  Gov- 
ernment entitled  to  wear  two  swords),  and  of  course  an  '  omet- 
sky^^  or  spy,  to  watch  them,  if  not  me — more  probably  both — 
made  up  my  escort.  These  all  being  gentlemen  of  a  certain 
dignity,  each  had  their  norimons,  with  bearers  and  attendants, 
the  Vice-Governor  with  umbrella  and  spear-bearers.  These, 
added  to  my  own,  made  a  cortege  of  at  least  a  hundred  per- 


344  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XX. 

sons,  with  more  than  thirty  horses ;  and,  as  my  eye  followed 
them  along  the  road  nearly  as  far  as  I  could  see,  I  sighed  invol- 
untarily to  think  what  I  was  undertaking,  having  had  some  ex- 
perience of  traveling  in  the  East,  both  in  its  cares  and  its  costs, 
and  under  similar  conditions  of  a  large  following.  In  truth,  it 
had  required  some  effort  on  my  part  to  face  the  inevitable 
troubles,  and  without  a  political  object,  which  I  deemed  of 
some  importance,  I  should  never,  perhaps,  have  started.  But 
it  was  a  question  whether  the  clause  of  the  treaty  giving  unre- 
stricted right  of  traveling  to  Foreign  Representatives  residing 
in  the  capital  was,  like  so  many  other  stipulations,  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  dead  letter  to  all  practical  purposes  ?  It  so  hap- 
pened that  neither  I  nor  any  of  my  colleagues  hitherto  had 
found  leisure  or  inclination  to  put  it  to  a  practical  test,  and 
give  it  effect  by  undertaking  any  expedition.  American, 
Dutch,  and  Russian  agents  had,  on  one  or  two  occasions,  trav- 
eled along  the  high  road,  either  from  Nagasaki  or  Hakodadi, 
on  their  way  to  and  from  the  capital  for  purposes  of  negotia- 
tion, as  the  Dutch  formerly,  to  carry  tribute ;  but  a  journey  in 
the  interior,  undertaken  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  recreation 
and  observation,  and  out  of  the  beaten  track,  in  the  exercise  of 
a  treaty  right,  was  as  yet  an  unheard-of  thing.  The  difficulties 
and  obstacles  I  encountered,  though  not,  on  the  whole,  more 
than  experience  led  me  to  anticipate,  were  at  least  many  and 
tiresome.  Sometimes  the  pleas  for  delay  or  abandonment  put 
forward  were  amusing.  At  first  it  was  the  unsettled  state  of 
the  country,  and  the  risk  of  venturing  so  far  from  the  capital 
and  seat  of  government ;  then  it  was  too  late  in  the  season; 
nay,  '  at  certain  times  the  mountain  opened  in  huge  fissures 
and  swallowed  up  the  incautious  traveler.'  Even  when  all 
hope  of  absolutely  stopping  me  must  have  been  lost,  it  was 
found  a  great  feast,  or  matsuri^  was  going  on,  and  the  roads 
would  be  filled  with  drunken,  dissolute  characters  ;  so  that,  at 
all  events,  J^mws^  defer  my  departure  a/eto  days.  This  con- 
ceded, the  preparations  went  on,  and  it  was  somewhat  re- 
markable that  from  this  moment,  having  made  a  good  fight 
and  been  defeated,  they  seemed  to  accept  the  result  as  inevita- 
ble, and  '  ate  their  leek'  with  no  bad  grace  after  all.  Indeed, 
from  the  hour  of  my  leaving  Yeddo  to  the  day  of  my  return, 
after  a  month's  absence,  I  met  not  only  with  no  farther  ob- 
struction, but,  to  all  appearance,  every  thing  was  done  by  the 
officials  and  Government  to  make  my  journey  both  pleasant 
and  safe ;  this  I  feel  bound  in  justice  to  record. 

I  have  said  there  was  a  pohtical  object  apart  from  the  pleas- 
ure of  getting  away  from  my  quasi  state  prison  in  Yeddo,  and 


Chap.  XX.]  POLITICAL  OBJECTS.  345 

the  attractions  of  so  novel  an  expedition  in  a  new  field  of  ob- 
servation. The  prospect  of  fine  scenery,  change  of  air,  and  an 
experience  of  the  sulphur  spas  of  Atami^  with  a  quiet  sojourn 
by  the  sea-side,  all  of  which  were  in  the  programme,  might 
have  been  insufficient.  But  I  wished  especially  to  ascertain 
for  myself  whether  there  was  any  foundation  for  the  never- 
failing  assertion  of  the  Ministers,  that  the  'country  was  in  an 
unsettled  state,  owing  to  the  increased  dearuess  of  every  thing, 
caused  by  the  sudden  demands  of  foreign  trade.'  I  wished  to 
have  the  opportunity  of  judging  whether  the  excitement  and 
hostility  toward  foreigners,  in  consequence  of  the  newly-con- 
tracted foreign  relations,  and  departure  from  the  ancient  pol- 
icy of  seclusion  and  isolation,  did  or  did  not  exist  away  from 
the  centre  of  government.  And  this  personal  observation 
could  alone  supply,  while  traveling  leisurely  through  the  coun- 
try. Other  objects  there  were  also,  only  to  be  attained  by  my 
own  presence.  It  is  true,  I  ran  the  risk  of  encountering  disa- 
agreeable  evidences  of  the  power  of  the  Rulers  of  Japan  to 
verify  their  own  prophecies ;  neither  did  I  overlook  the  cir- 
cumstance of  such  a  journey  offering  a  great  temptation  to 
convince  me  hy  facts  of  the  accuracy  of  the  conclusion  they 
were  so  anxious  to  impress  upon  me,  namely,  that  such  was 
the  state  of  public  feeling  that  our  own  safety,  not  less  than 
that  of  the  Government,  required  the  quasi  sequestration  of 
Foreign  Representatives  in  their  respective  dwellings,  and  a 
farther  modification  of  existing  treaties,  so  far  as  the  opening 
of  additional  ports  was  concerned.  But  these  were  risks  to  be 
deliberately  incurred,  in  view  of  the  importance  of  securing 
some  independent  means  of  judgment,  or  the  chance,  at  least, 
of  doing  so,  which  such  an  expedition,  far  from  the  capital  and 
centre  of  government,  could  alone  afibrd.  And  I  had  heard  so 
much  of  this  dread  hydra  which  stood  in  the  way  of  all  ad- 
vance, warning  the  foreigner  oflT,  with  threatening  voice  and 
gesture,  that  I  was  strongly  moved  to  take  a  voyage  of  discov- 
ery in  pursuit  of  some  more  tangible  evidence  of  its  existence 
than  had  yet  been  afforded  me. 

The  route  to  Fusiyama  from  Yeddo  skirts  the  coast  for  some 
fiftv  miles,  crossing  here  and  there  a  peninsula.  The  Tocado^ 
or  high  road  to  the  capital  already  referred  to,  winding  along 
the  coast  to  Nagasaki  and  other  towns  south  of  Yeddo,  was 
open  to  us  as  far  as  Yosiwara.  By  this  road,  all  the  Daimios 
whose  territories  lie  south  yearly  travel  to  and  from  the  court 
for  a  forced  residence  of  six  months ;  and  the  mountain  pass 
of  Hakoni,  through  which  it  leads,  is  strictly  guarded,  to  pre- 
vent arms  being  carried  toward  the  capital,  or  wife  or  female 

P2 


j^46  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XX. 

child  belonging  to  Daimios  passing  out  from  it,  as  these  re- 
main hostages  during  his  return  to  his  territory.  The  day's 
journey  for  these  magnates  of  the  land,  who  travel  with  an 
immense  retinue  of  retainers,  sometimes  several  thousand,  sel- 
dom exceeds  twenty  miles,  and  more  generally  fifteen  is  the 
limit,  or  from  five  to  six  Mi,  a  measure  of  about  4900  yards,  or 
two  miles  and  two  thirds.  At  the  several  towns  at  which  they 
usually  halt  there  are  a  certain  number  of  honjens — houses  of 
entertainment  reserved  expressly  for  Daimios  and  Tycoon's  of- 
ficers, where  they  put  up  for  the  night.  These  are  generally 
kept  by  some  servant  or  retainer  of  the  lord  of  the  district, 
who  will  either  supply  the  usual  food  from  the  kitchen  attach- 
ed, or  the  traveler's  servants  can  prepare  it  themselves,  or 
finally  purchase  it  from  a  neighboring  traiteur  for  their  master. 
These  houses  are  generally  spacious,  clean — and  empty.  The 
clean  matted  floor  supplies  at  once  a  seat,  a  couch,  and  a  table. 
Wadded  counterpanes,  and  even  musquito  nets,  can  generally 
be  supplied  for  sleeping. 

The  principal  apartments  are  at  what  may  be  termed  the 
back  of  the  house,  situated,  as  the  dwelling  always  is,  entre 
cour  etjardin  ;  and,  whatever  the  space  allotted,  a  garden  of 
some  kind  is  always  to  be  found.  Though  only  a  few  square 
feet  sometimes,  there  will  still  be  a  miniature  imitation  of  a 
wilderness,  of  dwarfed  trees,  rock-work,  lake,  and  lawn.  These 
are  indispensable  in  all ;  and  in  some,  where  the  space  is  less 
restricted,  and  the  vicinity  of  mountains  aids  the  artist,  there 
are  cascades  brought  over  ledges  of  rock,  subterranean  caves 
with  gold  and  silver  fish  passing  in  and  out,  and  trees  of  every 
variety  of  hue  and  shape,  including  the  pine  and  yew,  bamboo, 
and  a  long  list  of  flowering  shrubs,  among  which  oranges  and 
camellias  are  common.  Here,  away  from  the  noise  of  the  en- 
trance and  the  kitchen — the  latter  always  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
former — the  travelei"  may  take  his  rest,  and,  with  very  little 
help  from  the  imagination,  believe  himself  in  the  midst  of  a 

spacious  garden  and  grounds,  laid 
out  with  skill  and  taste.  Imme- 
diately after  arrival  the  landlord 
appears  in  full  costume,  and,  pros- 
trating himself  with  his  head  to 
the  ground,  felicitates  himself  on 
the  honor  of  receiving  so  distin- 
^_^^^  guished  a  guest,  begs  to  receive 

SALUTATION  OF  MINE  HOST.      J'"^"*  ordcrs,  and  that  you  will  be 
pleased  to  accept  a  humble  oflTer- 
ing  at  his  hands — generally  a  little  fruit,  a  few  grapes  or  or- 


Chap.  XX.] 


MINE  HOST.— KITCHEN. 


347 


anges,  occasionally  a  rope  of  eggs,  that  is  to  say,  a  row  of 
these,  curiously  twisted  and  plaited  in  to  a  fine  rope  of  straw. 
Due  thanks  having  been  given,  he  disappears,  and  you  see  no 
more  of  him  or  his  servants — if,  as  usually  happens,  the  guests 
bring  their  own,  and  do  not  require  help — until  the  foot  is  in 
the  stirrup,  when  he  makes  another  formal  salutation,  with 
parting  thanks  and  good  wishes.  I  mention  these  details  now, 
because,  once  given,  they  apply  to  the  whole  journey ;  the 
house  or  garden  may  be  a  little  larger  or  smaller,  the  paper  on 
the  walls  which  divides  the  rooms  a  little  fresher  or  dingier, 
but  all  the  essential  features  are  stereotyped,  and  exactly  re- 
produced from  one  end  of  the  kingdom  to  the  other.  I  was 
frequently  puzzled,  at  a  few  days'  interval,  to  tell  whether  I  had 
been  in  the  same  quarters  before  or  not,  there  is  so  little  to  in- 
dividualize either  the  landlord  or  the  accommodation. 


INTERIOR   OF   A    KITCHEN. 


The  kitchen  is  undoubtedly  the  best  furnished  apartment  in 
the  house,  as  may  be  seen  by  the  '  interior,'  with  all  its  acces- 
sories, drawn  from  nature.  And,  in  the  few  glimpses  I  ever 
had  of  these  regions,  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  presiding  god- 
dess had,  if  not  the  best  quarters  or  the  highest  style  ol  beau- 
ty, that  which  both  sometimes  fail  to  secure, '  troops  of  friends' 
and  good  cheer,  with  a  capacity  for  sleep  wliich  could  dispense 
with  all  accessories  of  feather  bed  and  pillows.    Nor,  ind  h<1, 


348  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  tCHAP.  XX 

is  there  any  room  for  compassion  at  the  want  of  these  adjuncts. 
The  pillow  in  the  foreground  is  of  the  smallest,  and  must  re- 
quire a  tranquil  sleeper ;  but  the  wadded  quilt  supplies  a  very 
good  cover  and  bed  in  one,  and  the  circular  paper-shaded  night- 
lamp  sheds  a  soft  and  soothing  light.  To  the  principal  apart- 
ments a  bath-room,  sometimes  two  or  three,  with  conveniences 
of  every  kind  adjoining,  maybe  invariably  counted  upon — and 
models  of  cleanliness  such  as  are  rarely  met  with  out  of  En- 
gland, where  the  bath-rooms  themselves,  it  must  be  confessed, 
are  far  too  generally  wanting.  In  these  respects  the  Japanese 
are  in  a  condition  to  give  lessons  to  Europe.  We  always  found 
prepared,  on  our  arrival  at  the  house  selected  by  the  oiRcer 
sent  in  advance,  a  bath  of  hot  water  and  another  of  cold ;  the 
first  to  bathe  in,  and  the  second  for  a  cold  douche  on  stepping 
out,  to  brace  up  the  relaxed  fibres. 

At  last  we  were  fairly  on  our  way,  and  our  pilgrimage  to 
Fusiyama, '  mons  exeelsus  et  singularis^  as  Koempfer  describes 
it, '  which  in  beauty,  pei'haps,  hath  not  its  equal.'  It  may  be 
seen  from  Yeddo,  at  a  distance  of  some  eighty  miles,  on  a  bright 
summer  evening,  lifting  its  head  high  into  the  clouds,  the  west- 
ern sun  setting  behind  it,  and  making  a  screen  of  gold  on  which 
its  purple  mass  stands  out  in  bold  relief;  or,  early  in  the  morn- 
ing, its  glittering  cone  of  snow  tipped  with  the  rays  of  the  ris- 
ing orb ;  and  in  either  aspect  it  is  certainly  both  singular  and 
picturesque,  springing  abruptly  from  a  broad  base  into  an  al- 
most perfect  cone,  truncated  only  at  the  extreme  pinnacle,  and 
towering  fxr  above  all  the  surrounding  ranges  of  hills.  To  the 
Japanese,  who  are  any  thing  but  cosmopolitan,  it  may  be  the 
*  matchless'  for  which,  as  Koempfer  goes  on  to  say, '  poets  can 
not  find  words,  nor  painters  skill  and  colors  sufficient  to  repre- 
sent the  mountain  as  they  think  it  deserves.' 

Our  route  is  pretty  accurately  laid  down  in  the  rough  tracing 
of  a  native  map  I  sent  to  the  Geographical  Society,  which,  for 
want  of  tracing-paper,  had  been  drawn  on  one  of  the  Japanese 
oil-paper  cloaks  we  purchased  on  the  way.  It  may  also  be 
seen,  on  a  smaller  scale,  in  the  map  of  Japan  at  the  end  of  this 
volume.  During  the  first  few  days  the  road  lay  over  a  suc- 
cession of  hills  of  no  great  height,  but  from  whence  fine  views 
were  obtained  over  the  cultivated  valleys  on  either  side,  with 
a  background  of  mountains  to  the  westward,  among  which 
Fusi  soars  conspicuous  in  solitary  grandeur.  We  passed 
through  many  large  villages,  and  the  town  of  Totsooka,  where 
we  halted  for  breakfast.  The  second  day  carried  us  over  a 
plain  skirting  the  sea,  from  Foodisawa,  where  we  slept,  to  Oda- 
wara,  before  reaching  which  we  had  to  cross  the  River  Saki. 


Chap.  XX.]  A  MARItORNES.— UEST. 


d4d 


A    JAl'ANliSli    AIAKIIUKNKS. 


WELL<BAHMBD  MMKt. 


360  ^HREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  iCnxv.  XX. 

While  yet  some  distance  from  the  entrance,  a  guard  of  honor 
was  sent  to  meet  the  party  by  the  Daimio  of  the  territory,  and 
preceded  us  into  the  town.  Sakigawa  is  nearly  as  celebrated 
in  Japanese  art  and  story  as  Fusiyania,  althougli  less  frequent- 
ly the  ornament  of  tea-cups  or  cabinets.  Rude  illustrations  of 
both  abound,  and  show,  among  other  things,  that  the  litho- 
crome  process,  so  recently  brought  to  perfection  with  us,  has 
long  been  familiar  to  them,  both  in  its  principle  and  manipula- 
tion, blocks  of  wood  only  being  used  instead  of  stones. 

This  river,  descending  abruptly  from  the  neighboring  hills, 
which  are  at  no  great  distance,  divides  into  two  branches  as  it 
approaches  the  sea,  spreading  wide  across  a  pebbly  bottom. 
It  appears  to  be  subject  to  such  sudden  freshes  in  wet  weather, 
or  on  the  melting  of  the  snow,  and  to  such  increase  of  volume, 
as  well  as  width  on  its  flat  shores,  that  over  one  of  the  branch- 
es it  has  been  found  impossible  to  maintain  a  bridge.  The 
consequence  is,  that,  lying  across  the  main  road  to  and  from 
the  capital,  a  large  body  oi porters — strong,  brawny  men — in- 
nocent of  all  drapery  but  a  loin-cloth,  are  always  in  attendance 
to  carry  the  travelers  across — the  common  sort  on  their  shoul- 
ders, '- plck-a-back^^  the  dignitaries,  male  and  female,  on  short 
platforms  borne  by  six  men,  with  their  arms  crossed  over  each 
other's  shoulders  for  greater  steadiness,  as  depicted  in  the 
sketch  on  the  opposite  page.  It  would  seem  a  tolerably  lucrar 
tive  monopoly;  however,  it  has  its  drawbacks,  for  they  are 
made  responsible  for  the  safety  of  their  passengers,  and  if  any 
accident  happens  to  their  burdens,  they  have  nothing  left  but 
to  drown  with  tliem,  for  no  excuses  are  taken.  Such  is  the 
theory  and  the  law  ;  I  can  not  so  confidently  speak  of  the  prac- 
tice. If  railroads  could  only  be  placed  under  the  same  system, 
excursion  trains  might,  perhaps,  travel  with  safety.  Accidents, 
at  all  events,  are  unknown  here,  partly,  no  doubt,  because, 
when  the  waters  swell,  these  experienced  men  at  the  ford,  in 
view  of  their  responsibility,  and  the  certainty  of  no  traffic  be- 
ing possible  without  their  aid,  refuse  the  passage ;  and  it  occa- 
sionally happens  that  travelers  on  each  side  are  detained  sev- 
eral days,  looking  disconsolately  at  each  other  from  the  oppo- 
site banks.  When  the  Gotairo  (the  Regent  of  the  kingdom) 
was  slain  in  the  streets  of  Yeddo,  as  I  have  related,  by  a  band 
of  armed  men,  who  cut  their  way,  sword  in  hand,  through  his 
retinue,  it  is  said  some  of  his  own  vassals  in  the  country  had 
got  information  of  the  plot  against  his  life,  and  followed  sharp 
on  the  heels  of  the  conspirators ;  there  was  a  day's  interval, 
however,  between  them,  and  in  that  day  the  river  became  im- 
passable !     Life  and  death  were  hanging  on  then*  speed,  but 


Chap.  XX.]  ENTRANCE  INTO  ODAWARA.  353 

their  road  was  stopped  by  this  impassable  ford  ;  and  when 
they  reached  Yeddo,  the  catastrophe,  which  their  warning 
might  have  averted,  was  consummated,  and  their  Prince  had 
fallen. 

We  were  more  fortunate,  and  our  stout  porters  carried  us 
without  demur  across,  though  the  water  was  surging  round 
their  hips  in  many  places ;  but  they  seemed  to  know  perfectly 
well  where  to  pick  their  steps,  and,  taking  us  in  a  zigzag  line 
up  the  stream,  made  their  way  without  much  difficulty.  Our 
whole  party  were  carried  over  for  eleven  itziboos — about  15s. 
—  a  large  sum  in  Japan,  to  be  divided  amongst  some  thirty 
men  for  a  half  hour's  work  ;  but  it  is  by  no  means  certain  this 
sum  was  paid  to  them.  That  was  the  amount  charged  to  us  ; 
whether  it  ever  reached  their  hands  could  not  be  ascertained, 
as  the  payment  was  necessarily  made  through  the  attendant 
officers,  and  there  was  at  least  a  great  probability  of  diminu- 
tion on  the  way. 

The  entrance  of  such  a  cavalcade  of  foreigners  was  doubtless 
a  great  event  in  all  the  towns  we  passed  through  ;  in  fact,  noth- 
ing like  it  could  ever  have  been  seen  before.  And  as  each 
roadside  village,  and  even  the  larger  towns,  generally  consist 
of  one  long  and  seemingly  endless  street,  the  news  of  our  ap- 
proach spread  as  rapidly  and  unerringly  as  the  message  of  an 
electric  telegraph,  turning  out  the  w  hole  population  as  if  by  a 
simultaneous  shock;  men,  women,  and  children  —  clothed  and 
nude — dogs,  poultry,  and  cats !  I  think  at  Odawara  no  living 
thing  could  have  been  left  inside.  Such  a  waving  sea  of  heads 
seemed  to  bar  our  passage,  that  I  began  to  congratulate  my- 
self (as  we  had  outstripped  all  our  own  people)  that  my  un- 
known friend  the  Daimio  had  so  courteously  supplied  me  with 
an  escort.  I  felt  some  curiosity  as  to  the  mode  they  would 
take  to  open  a  way  through  the  dense  mass  of  swaying  bodies 
and  excited  heads,  which  looked  all  the  more  formidable  the 
nearer  we  approached.  My  guides,  however,  seemed  perfectly 
unembarrassed,  and  well  they  might  be,  for  when  within  a  few 
steps  of  the  foremost  ranks,  there  was  a  wave  of  the  fan  and  a 
single  word  of  command  issued,  '•  ShUanirioP  (kneel  down), 
when,  as  if  by  magic,  a  wide  path  was  opened,  and  every  head 
dropped,  the  body  disappearing  in  some  marvelous  way  behind 
the  legs  and  knees  of  its  owner.  Certainly  Harlequin's  wand 
or  Aladdin's  sesame  never  produced  a  more  sudden  or  scenic 
effect.  I  could  not  help  thinking  how  much  more  easily  the 
wonder  was  wrought  and  the  problem  solved  than  would  have 
been  possible  in  the  streets  of  London.  If  the  magic  fan  and 
word  could  only  be  imported  for  the  use  of  our  policemen, 


354  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XX. 

without  losing  their  spell-like  effect,  there  is  no  saying  what 
amount  might  be  saved  in  yearly  police-rates.  I  doubt,  how- 
ever, whether  an  English  mob  would  be  as  susceptible  of  the 
same  mesmeric  influence?  It  probably  requires  a  long  pre- 
paratory training  —  and  whether  severe  or  gentle  may  be  a 
question. 

During  both  these  days,  which  brought  us  to  the  foot  of  the 
Hakoni  range  of  mountains,  rising  some  6000  feet  above  the 
sea,  nothing  could  exceed  the  beauty  of  the  road.  Generally 
a  fine  avenue  of  smooth  gravel  led  through  a  succession  offer- 
tile  plains  and  valleys,  where  the  millet,  buckwheat,  and  rice 
were  all  giving  promise  of  rich  harvest.  A  fruitful  soil,  a  fine 
climate,  and  an  industrious  people,  make  a  list  which  seems  to 
contain  nearly  all  that  can  be  desired  for  any  country  in  the 
way  of  material  elements  of  prosperity,  unless  they  are  in  the 
case  described  in  an  old  legend  of  Spain,  which  tells  how  iSt. 
Jago,  the  patron  saint  of  Iberia,  went  to  his  Master  and  begged 
some  special  favor  for  the  country  he  had  adopted.  And  first 
he  asked  for  a  fertile  soil,  for  a  fine  climate,  for  brave  sons  to 
defend,  and  fair  daughters  to  grace  it,  all  of  which  were  suc- 
cessively granted.  Emboldened  by  this  success,  he  asked  that 
they  should  be  blessed  with  a  good  Government ;  when  his 
Master,  according  to  the  Spanish  version,  either  wearied  with 
so  much  importunity,  or  in  a  spirit  of  justice  to  other  lands  by 
way  of  compensation  for  so  many  rich  gifts,  replied  with  em- 
phasis, '  That  was  a  blessing  they  would  never  have !'  And  the 
Spaniard  will  tell  you  how  loyally  the  word  has  been  kept,  and 
how  all  other  blessings  have  been  neutralized  by  the  want  of 
this  one  crowning  gift!  This,  however,  can  hardly  be  said 
with  truth  of  Japan,  to  judge  by  what  I  have  seen;  but  an- 
other and  a  better  occasion  will  be  found  hereafter  for  dealing 
with  this  question. 

Reflections  on  the  government  and  civilization  of  the  Jap- 
anese press  upon  the  European  every  step  he  takes  in  this 
land,  so  singularly  blessed  in  soil  and  climate,  so  happy  in  the 
contented  character  and  simple  habits  of  its  people,  yet  so 
strangely  governed  by  unwritten  laws  and  irresponsible  Rul- 
ers. I  say  unwritten ;  for,  though  the  Ministers  tell  me  a  writ- 
ten code  exists,  I  have  been  unable  to  obtain  a  copy,  and,  im- 
less  they  misled  me,  it  has  never  been  printed.*  A  country 
without  either  statute,  law,  or  lawyers,  does  seem  an  anomaly 
with  a  civilization  so  advanced.  Whether  the  want  of  the  one 
may  be  held  compensated  by  the  absence  of  the  other,  in  the 

*  I  afteisvard  succeeded  in  obtaining  a  code  of  printed  laws  and  edicts, 
whether  only  a  sectional  portion  or  the  whole  yet  remains  to  be  ascertained. 


CHAP.  XX]  HAKONI  SCENERY.  355 

estimation  of  the  Japanese,  I  dare  not  venture  to  say ;  I  can 
only  affirm  that  they  seem  very  well  contented  without  either. 
If  their  administration  of  justice  be  in  many  cases  sharp,  and 
in  all  without  appeal,  it  may  be  better  suited  to  the  simple 
habits  and  the  state  of  education  of  the  mass,  than  more  elab- 
orate processes,  for  which  they  might  find  it  impossible  to 
supply  the  proper  instruments — processes  which,  even  in  more 
advanced  nations,  are  not  without  serious  drawbacks  of  inter- 
minable suits  and  ruinous  litigation,  with  no  small  admixture 
of  doubt  and  uncertainty  in  the  issue.  But  it  is  time  we  pro- 
ceeded on  our  journey. 

From  Odawara  to  Missima,  the  road  Hes  through  the  mount- 
ain passes  of  Hakoni,  which  are  situated  near  the  summit  of 
the  range,  a  distance  of  about  seven  leagues,  and  of  as  rough 
mountain  roads  as  can  well  be  conceived.  Many  are  but  wa- 
ter-courses, filled  with  fragments  of  rocks  for  paving-stones, 
over  which  it  was  quite  impossible  to  ride,  even  with  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  straw  shoes  of  the  country.  With  our  iron- 
shod  horses  these  were  found  indispensable,  and  it  was  difficult 
work  for  the  Bettos  (grooms)  to  lead  them  safely  across  the 
boulders,  even  without  the  encumbrance  of  a  rider,  and  several 
had  I'alls  with  manifest  danger  to  their  knees.  It  is  almost  one 
continued  ascent  too,  which  renders  it  slow  as  well  as  labori- 
ous work  to  make  much  progress.  But  the  scenery  would 
amply  repay  any  fatigue  of  body.  There  was  much  to  remind 
a  Swiss  traveler  of  the  Obiirland  in  parts,  especially  the  descent 
to  Lauterbrunnen  :  high  wooded  hills  where  the  pine  predom- 
inated, fresh  green  valleys,  and  a  mountain  stream  winding 
through  the  fields  at  the  bottom.  But  it  is  less  grand  in  its 
principal  features.  Here  are  no  bare  rocks  and  high-peaked 
mountains,  with  their  eternal  glaciers  and  mantle  of  snow. 
Fewer  cascades  are  to  be  seen  leaping  over  the  precipitous 
rocks  in  a  sheer  descent  of  a  thousand  feet.  The  Scheideck 
and  Wetterhorn,  with  bare  walls  towering  to  the  sky,  are  want- 
ing; nor  is  there  any  rival  in  all  the  mountain  range  of  Hakoni 
to  the  Jungfrau,  with  its  soaring  pinnacle  and  vast  expanse  of 
snow  and  glacier.  The  giant  of  the  Bernese  chain,  it  must  be 
confessed,  flings  into  the  shade  any  thing  to  be  seen  in  Japan. 
But  if  its  scenery  may  not  compete  with  the  Alps  in  sublim- 
ity, there  is  in  lieu  far  greater  variety  and  richness  of  vegeta- 
tion. Here,  high  up  the  mountain  sides,  forests  o^  Pinus  den- 
sijlora  mingle  with  the  graceful  foliage  of  the  Bamboo  and 
the  Cryptomeria,  which  for  the  first  time  I  saw  in  its  glory  as 
a  timber  treo.  In  our  descent  to  the  Lake  of  Hakoni  from  the 
summit  of  the  pass,  we  came  upon  a  fine  avenue  of  these,  sev- 


356  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  tCHAP.  XX. 

eral  measuring  in  girth,  three  feet  from  the  ground,  fourteen 
and  sixteen  feet,  and  standing  upward  of  150  feet  high.  The 
wild  hydrangea,  with  its  large  flower  clusters,  lilac,  blue,  and 
white,  covered  the  banks  side  by  side  with  the  Scotch  thistle. 
From  the  valleys  to  the  highest  summit,  every  hill  and  mount- 
ain presented  one  dense  mass  of  luxuriant  foliage  in  trees  and 
shrubs.  The  oak,  the  maple,  the  beech,  the  alder,  and  the 
chestnut,  all  were  here,  and  in  rich  autumnal  tints.  The  bot- 
anist returned  laden  with  many  new  ferns  and  other  specimens 
of  interest.  The  Thujopsis  dolahrata  described  by  Thunberg, 
and  of  which  the  only  specimen  in  England  was,  I  believe,  un- 
til lately,  in  the  gardens  of  Mr.Veitch,  I  looked  for  with  great 
interest,  but  must  confess  I  was  disappointed  in  the  effect  of 
the  tree.  Thunberg  was  so  enthusiastic  in  his  admiration  that 
perhaps  disappointment  was  inevitable.  It  is  a  noble  tree  of 
the  pine  species,  and,  with  its  silver  lining,  unlike  in  this  and 
other  respects  any  in  Europe.  But  still  it  seemed  scarcely  cal- 
culated to  throw  any  but  a  botanist  escaping  from  a  sea-girt 
prison,  and  the  first  discoverer,  into  ecstasies !  I  sent  several 
si^ecimens,  in  Ward's  cases,  to  the  Royal  Gardens  at  Kew,  and 
one,  a  variegated  species,  not  before  described,  1  believe.  It 
was  found  by  Mr.  Veitch  in  the  Monastery  of  Omio,  at  the 
foot  of  Fusiyama,  and  I  immediately  secured  it,  for  a  consid- 
eration, from  its  proprietor,  the  Superior.  On  my  return  to 
Yeddo,  however,  I  found  many  others  of  the  same  kind,  which 
it  seems  had  escaped  my  attention,  and  it  has  been  observed 
that  there  is  a  great  disposition  in  all  the  vegetation  to  be- 
come variegated.  That  I  may  not  fatigue  the  reader,  howev- 
er, with  a  long  enumeration  of  plants  and  mere  botanical 
names,  I  have  placed  in  the  Appendix  some  detailed  notes,  and 
a  list  of  the  most  prevalent  species  observed  throughout  the 
expedition,  which  Mr.  Veitch  made  out  from  day  to  day. 

After  a  three  hours'  toilsome  ascent  we  reached  Yomotz, 
a  little  hamlet  buried  in  the  mountains,  and  clustered  round 
some  hot  saline  springs.  The  common  calamity  of  the  coun- 
try had  befallen  the  villagers,  and  a  fire  had  reduced  the  place 
to  ashes.  We  found  them  busily  engaged  in  building  up  the 
houses  anew,  and  made  a  very  short  stay,  as  the  clouds  threat- 
ened rain,  and  we  had  still  four  hours'  journey  before  us  even 
to  reach  the  lake  and  village  of  Hakoni.  And  this  was  little 
more  than  half  way  to  Missima,  which  lies  in  the  plain  beyond 
the  pass,  and  thither  we  were  bound.  A  younger  member  of 
the  party,  however,  had  profited  by  the  halt  to  plunge  into 
one  of  the  saline  baths,  and  came  out  even  more  quickly  than 
he  rushed  in,  quite  satisfied  that  a  Japanese  skin  must  be 


Chah.  XX.]         PARADOXES  AND  ANOMALIES.  367 

much  more  tolerant  of  heat  than  the  Caucasian's,  for  he 
emerged  as  red  as  a  lobster,  and  much  as  that  martyr  to  gas- 
tronomy may  be  supposed  to  feel  before  all  feeling  is  boiled 
out  of  him. 

There  seemed  to  be  several  sources  with  a  saline  taste,  and 
the  Japanese,  who  are  a  race  of  bathers,  come  from  great  dis- 
tances to  take  baths.  Indeed,  the  bath-house,  as  I  have  had 
occasion  to  remark,  is  an  important  institution  in  Japan ;  it  is 
what  the  baths  were  to  the  Romans,  and  what  the  cafe  is  to 
a  Frenchman  —  the  grand  lounge.  Toward  the  close  of  the 
day  and  the  early  hours  after  sunset,  in  passing  along  the 
streets  of  Yeddo  on  a  summer's  evening,  at  every  hundred 
steps  a  bath-house  is  visible.  You  know  their  vicinity  by 
the  steam  escaping  through  open  doors  and  windows,  and  the 
hum  of  many  voices,  bass  and  tenor,  in  full  chorus.  And  here 
all  the  gossip  of  the  neighborhood  and  town  is  no  doubt  ven- 
tilated. No  one  is  so  poor  that  he  can  not  secure  a  bath — no 
one  so  wretched  that  this  luxury,  at  least,  may  not  be  his. 
Here,  if  they  have  any  cares,  they  seem  to  forget  them  all  in 
the  steamy  atniosphere,  and  forming  the  very  oddest  assem- 
blage that  ca!i  well  be  conceived. 

Japan  is  essentially  a  country  of  paradoxes  and  anomalies, 
where  all,  even  familiar  things,  put  on  new  faces,  and  are  cu- 
riously reversed.  Except  that  they  do  not  walk  on  their  heads 
instead  of  their  feet,  there  are  few  things  in  which  they  do  not 
seem,  by  some  occult  law,  to  have  been  impelled  in  a  perfectly 
opposite  diret-lion  and  a  reversed  order.  They  write  from  top 
to  bottom,  fiom  right  to  left,  in  perpendicular  instead  of  hori- 
zontal lines,  and  their  books  begin  where  ours  end,  thus  fur- 
nishing goo«l  examples  of  the  curious  perfection  this  rule  of 
contraries  has  attained.  Their  locks,  though  imitated  from 
Europe,  are  all  made  to  lock  by  turning  the  key  from  left  to 
right.  The  course  of  all  sublunary  things  appears  reversed. 
Their  day  is  for  the  most  part  our  night,  and  this  principle  of 
antagonism  crops  out  in  the  most  unexpected  and  bizarre  way 
in  all  their  moral  being,  customs,  and  habits.  I  leave  to  phi- 
losophers the  explanation — I  only  speak  to  the  facts.  There 
old  men  fly  kites  while  the  children  look  on ;  the  carpenter 
uses  his  plane  by  drawing  it  to  him,  and  their  tailors  stitch 
from  them ;  they  mount  their  horses  from  the  off-side ;  the 
horses  stand  in  the  stables  with  their  heads  where  we  place 
their  tails,  and  the  bells  to  their  harness  are  always  on  the  hind 
quarters  instead  of  the  front;  ladies  black  their  teeth  instead 
of  keeping  them  white,  and  their  anti-crinoline  tendencies  are 
carried  to  the  point  of  seriously  interfering  not  only  with  grace 


358  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XX 

of  movemeut,  but  with  all  locomotion,  so  tightly  are  the  lower 
limbs,  from  the  waist  downward,  girt  round  with  their  gar- 
ments ;  and,  finally,  the  utter  confusion  of  sexes  in  the  public 
bath-houses,  making  that  correct  which  we  in  the  West  deem 
BO  shocking  and  improper,  I  leave  as  I  find  it — a  problem  to 
solve. 

But  if  this  great  institution  of  the  bath  be  the  source  of  the 
public  opinion — said  by  the  Ministers  to  exist,  and  so  often  in- 
voked— it  rises  in  dignity  as  the  people's  parliament  or  house 
of  assembly  (the  only  one,  certainly,  they  are  permitted),  and 
we  may  overlook  some  of  its  deficiencies  of  costume  and  other 
eccentricities  in  the  contemplation  of  its  political  and  national 
uses.  It  certainly  has  a  recommendation  wanting  in  all  other 
parliaments,  of  acknowledging  to  the  fullest  extent  the  rights 
of  both  sexes,  and  their  equality.  Not  only  is  woman  not  ex- 
cluded, as  in  more  pretentious  parliaments,  but  their  voice  is 
unquestionably  heard  !  The  gentler  tenor  often  prevails  over 
the  deep  bass  of  the  men ;  and  the  frequent  laugh  and  shrill 
hilarity  of  the  tone,  heard  from  afai',  ought  to  be  a  sufficient 
guarantee  to  the  Government  that  no  deep  schemes  of  treason 
or  sanguinary  revolutions  are  ever  discussed,  at  the  same  time 
that  it  affords  a  pleasant  contrast  in  other  respects  to  many 
debates  in  more  solemn  places.  The  sex  is  the  State's  protec- 
tion ;  foi',  though  one  woman  may  plot  a  deed  of  vengeance, 
the  history  of  the  world  does  not  furnish  an  instance  of  a  con- 
spiracy of  women,  or  of  any  mixed  assembly  of  men  and  wom- 
en, for  the  enactment  of  scenes  of  violence  and  political  convul- 
sions. Long  experience,  or  a  deep  insight  into  human  nature, 
may  have  given  the  jealous  rulers  of  Japan  full  assurance  of 
the  fact,  and  thus  have  supplied  to  the  vox  populi  a  free  vent 
as  a  sort  of  safety-valve,  without  any  of  its  attendant  dangers. 
Assuredly  they  would  allow  no  such  gatherings  of  men  alone. 
If  so,  they  have  made  a  discovery  by  which  Western  States 
may  hereafter  profit,  with  such  modifications  of  drapery  and 
costume  as  our  more  refined  habits  would  dictate. 

The  rain  began  to  descend  in  torrents  as  we  left  the  baths 
of  Yomotz,  and  before  we  reached  the  guarded  barrier  at  the 
entrance  of  the  pass  we  were  all  thoroughly  drenched  and 
tired.  As  there  was  a  good  Aow;e^^  just  outside  the  bamer, 
and  picturesquely  situated  at  the  edge  of  the  lake,  all  thought 
of  proceeding  farther  till  the  next  day  was  given  up,  and  Lieu- 
tenant Robinson  set  to  work,  to  the  infinite  astonishment  of 
some  native  attendants,  to  boil  his  thermometer ;  in  other 
words,  to  ascertain  the  height  of  the  lake  above  the  sea,  which 
he  duly  reported  to  be  6250  feet.     The  water  boiled  at  a  tem- 


Chap.  XX.]      THE  LAKE  OF  HAKONL— MISSIMA.  361 

perature  of  1 98°,  and  the  aneroid  foil  to  27'90.  The  lake  itself 
IS  a  fine  sheet  of  wjxter,  stirrounded  by  hills,  and  tradition  says 
that  it  tills  tlie  extinct  crater  of  a  volcano.  I  was  very  sorry 
that  no  boat  could  be  found  to  enable  us  to  try  and  get  sound- 
ings. A  boat  there  was,  but  in  a  decayed  and  leaky  condi- 
tion, which  would  have  required,  moreover,  a  large  crew,  and 
not  a  man  was  forthcoming.  We  were  assured  there  v  eie  no 
fishermen  on  the  spot,  and  we  could  only  conclude  it  was  a 
precaution  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  any  one  crossing  to 
avoi«l  the  pass  and  its  guard  at  each  end.  The  hills,  which 
come  rather  steeply  down  to  the  water's  edge,  are  covered  at 
the  top  with  a  coarse  grass,  and  the  highest  in  the  immediate 
vicinity  I  should  not  estimate  at  more  than  300  or  500  feet, 
so  near  the  summit  of  the  range  is  the  level  of  the  lake.  I 
made  a  sketch  on  the  spot,  here  reproduced,  which  tolerably 
faithfully  shows  the  general  features  of  the  secluded  spot. 

The  following  morning  the  rain  had  passed  away,  and  we 
took  the  road  to  Missima  in  the  plain,  passing  through  the 
second  barrier,  where,  as  at  the  first — warned  of  our  approach, 
no  doubt,  and  the  exemption  from  all  search  or  detention 
claimed  as  due  to  Her  Majesty's  Envoy  —  the  whole  party 
were  allowed  to  pass  without  question.  Somewhat  to  our 
surprise,  we  found  an  ascent  of  more  than  an  hour  before  we 
reached  the  highest  point  beyond  the  pass,  from  whence  a 
beautiful  view  was  gained  of  the  plain  below,  stretching  away 
to  the  sea,  and  dotted  over  with  towns  and  hamlets,  chiefly  on 
the  banks  of  a  winding  stream  fringed  with  evergreens.  The 
view  down  the  mountain  side  to  the  valley  and  sea  beyond, 
basking  in  sunshine,  was  most  picturesque  in  efiect.  Evi- 
dences of  agricultural  wealth  were  broadcast.  Not  only  the 
fields  were  covered  with  crops  waving  to  the  harvest,  but 
many  of  the  hills  to  the  right  and  left  were  also  cultivated  in 
terraces  nearly  to  the  summit ;  and  where  neither  rice  nor 
maize  could  be  grown,  timber  with  luxuriant  foliage  and  of 
great  variety  succeeded. 

We  halted,  just  before  we  made  our  last  descent,  at  one  of 
the  wayside  sheds,  which  are  to  be  met  with  at  short  distances 
along  the  main  road  every  where  in  Japan,  I  believe,  certainly 
in  that  part  of  it  along  which  we  traveled.  In  these  the  poor- 
est traveler,  if  he  have  but  a  few  cash  (integral  parts  of  a 
farthing),  may  get  a  meal  served  with  courtesy,  which  will 
keep  hira  from  exhaustion  for  many  hours — a  sweet  potato, 
steaming  hot,  a  fried  fish,  and  a  cup  of  tea ;  or,  if  he  seeks 
lighter  diet,  any  fruit  that  is  in  season — a  bunch  of  grapes  or  a 
slice  of  watermelon,  red  and  luscious  as  it  lies  invitingly  under 


S62  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XX 

the  shade.  If  utterly  destitute,  without  one  cash,  he  may  still 
have  vest,  a  seat,  aud  a  cup  of  pure  fresh  water,  though  the 
latter  has  often  to  be  brought  from  a  great  distance.  Surely 
it  says  much  for  the  people  where  such  provision  for  the  least 
wealthy  aijd  most  needy  classes  is  made,  and,  with  scanty  profit, 
is  so  kindly  extended  to  all.  It  furnishes  a  strong  argument, 
also,  against  the  Government  which  seeks  to  convince  the  For- 
eign Representatives  of  the  dearness  of  the  commonest  articles 
of  consumption.  They  are  dear  only  when  Foreigners  require 
them,  as  I  had  occasion  to  know,  to  my  cost,  during  the  whole 
of  my  residence  in  the  country.  We  halted  here,  partly  tempt- 
ed by  a  larg'.'  melon  which  turned  its  deep  red  honeycomb  to- 
ward us,  and  partly  to  ascend  a  natural  platform  by  the  side, 
round  which  some  seats  were  placed,  that  the  ti'aveler  might 
drink  in  refreshment  by  the  eye  as  well  as  by  the  lips.  It 
overlooked  the  whole  glorious  plain,  with  the  spurs  of  wooded 
hills  projecting  in  wavy  lines,  as  though  still  washed  by  the 
sea,  where  very  evidently  it  had  once  been,  fretting  at  their 
base.  Here  we  ate  I  should  be  afraid  to  say  how  many  boun- 
tiful slices  of  the  great  melon,  rendered  moi*e  delicious  by  two 
hours'  hai-d  walking,  with  a  hot  sun  overhead.  The  road  so 
far  had  offered  little  inducement  to  ride,  it  was  so  rough  and 
steep,  whether  in  ascent  or  descent.  The  silver  itziboo  (value 
about  Is.  6^.)  which  I  gave  in  payment  for  what  would  not 
have  been  charged  more  than  a  tempo  (a  fifteenth  of  that  mod- 
erate sum),  was  given  in  the  hope  that  it  might  make  some 
amends  for  many  smaller  profits  during  the  day.  The  exceed- 
ing cheapness  of  things  whenever  we  happen,  as  in  that  case, 
to  be  out  of  reach  of  government  officers  and  escort,  and  to 
get  at  the  real  price,  does  not  tend  to  improve  the  temper 
under  barefaced  imposition.  On  descending  the  plain,  from 
whence  they  are  brought  at  great  labor,  there  was  a  demand 
for  melons ;  and  we  were  told,  first,  that  there  were  none ;  and 
then  that  a  single  melon  would  cost  the  price  for  which  six- 
teen could  have  been  bought  on  the  hill !  This  befell  us  at 
Missima,  where  we  rested  for  the  night.  The  people  have 
many  virtues,  but  a  long  experience  has  only  brought  to  light, 
in  the  official  class,  in  connection  with  foreigners, many  vices'; 
and  that  of  plundering  those  unhappily  committed  to  their 
charge  is  among  the  first,  and,  I  fear,  the  most  incorrigible. 
As  for  mendacity,  one  does  not  expect  impossibilities  or  mir- 
acles of  virtue,  especially  in  the  East ;  and  truth  is  apparently 
one  of  the  things  only  to  be  got  at  their  hands  by  torture  or 
miracle.  It  is  their  business  to  conceal  the  truth  from  for- 
eigners in  all  cases.    They  are  given  to  romancing  (not  to  use 


Chap.  XX.]  JAPANESE  CHARACTER.  86d 

harsh  words)  by  vocation^  therefore  a  sense  of  duty,  and  I  am 
afraid  it  must  also  be  said  taste  and  inveterate  habit,  all  tend 
the  same  way.  One  often  sighs  involuntarily,  with  a  weary 
feeling  of  utter  hopelessness,  when  life  or  important  interests 
may  be  at  stake,  while  the  exclamation  rises  to  the  lips, '  Oh 
for  a  gleam,  a  single  ray  of  truth' — '  a  hap'orth  of  bread  to  this 
unconscionable  quantity  of  sack  T  Russell  Lowel  never  can 
have  been  in  Japan,  or  he  would  not  have  talked  of 

The  apony 
Of  wearing  all  day  long  a  lying  face ! 

As  certain  physical  characters  of  race  are  transmissible  from 
generation  to  generation,  and  with  them  certain  moral  features, 
so  with  the  Japanese  this  proclivity  to  lying  must  have  com- 
pletely t.iken  the  place  of  any  original  constitution.  And  yet, 
withal,  he  has  many  traces  of  something  higher  and  better  in 
his  nature.  The  same  poet  supplies  a  description  much  more 
apposite,  and  we  might  truly  say. 

He  had  been  noble,  but  some  great  deceit 
Had  turned  his  better  instinct  to  a  vice. 

A  chivalric  disdain  of  life,  and  readiness  to  incur  death  in  any 
shape  rather  than  dishonor,  the  origin  of  the  Hara-kiru^  is  a 
striking  feature  in  their  character.  But  it  is  evidently  easier 
to  them  to  make  an  incised  wound  into  their  stomach  than  to 
speak  the  truth.  If  any  one  is  in  danger  of  forgetting  how 
preciotis  a  bond  of  society  this  is,  he  has  only  to  come  to  Ja- 
pan, and  live  where  it  is  wholly  unknown. 

Missima  is  a  large,  populous  town,  and  the  same  dense  mass 
of  crowds  greeted  our  entrance  as  at  Odawara  and  every  oth- 
c*.  considerable  place.  But  the  magic  word  in  the  mouth  of 
the  Daimios'  officers  never  failed  in  effect ;  nor  did  the  escort 
ever  i'ail  us  either,  for  the  party  had  attended  us  on  foot  the 
whole  way  over  the  mountains,  and  only  left  us  the  next  day, 
after  seeing  us  safely  out  of  the  town.  So,  as  we  approached 
our  next  resting-place,  Yoshoara^  another  of  the '  Seigneurs,'  in 
whose  territory  it  lay,  appeared  to  have  been  carefully  apprised 
of  our  approach,  and  we  found  an  escort  a  mile  or  two  in  ad- 
vance waiting  to  conduct  us  to  our  quarters ;  and  the  same  at- 
tention was  received  every  where  throughout  the  journey.* 

From  Missima  we  had  passed  through  the  towns  of  Noo- 
MADS  and  IIakua,  each  about  a  league  apart,  and  plainly  to  be 
seen  from  the  heights  of  Hakoni.    From  thence  to  Yosiwara, 

•  An  attention,  or  a  precaution  to  prevent  straying  from  the  Imperial 
high  road,  as,  on  my  second  and  longer  journey,  I  had  occasion  to  conrince 
myself. 


364  THREE  YEARS  lU  JAPAN.  tCnAP.  XX. 

still  on  the  plain,  is  about  three  leagues,  and  here  we  were  to 
take  our  leave  of  the  Tocado. 

The  route  to  Fusiyania  here  turns  oiF,  and  leads  by  cross 
roads  to  Omio  and  Mooriyama,  two  hamlets,  which  are  situ- 
ated at  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  where  some  important  tem- 
ples and  monasteries  are  grouped.  In  the  evening  a  deputa- 
tion was  announced  from  the  Superior  of  the  fraternity  at 
Omio,  sent  to  salute  me  and  convey  a  request  that  the  temple 
might  be  my  resting-place  for  the  following  night ;  with  many 
flattering  expressions,  significant  of  the  desire  of  their  head  to 
have  so  distinguished  an  honor  as  to  entertain  the  Minister  of 
Great  Britain,  no  one  of  such  rank.  Foreigner  or  Japanese, 
having  ever  traveled  to  that  region,  with  much  more  to  the 
same  eiFect.  Considering  they  had  come  a  long  day's  journey 
on  foot,  through  nmd  and  rain,  to  offer  me  such  hospitality, 
the  least  I  could  do  was  to  assure  them  I  would  not  fail,  either 
in  going  or  retui'ning,  to  show  the  attention  was  appreciated, 
by  taking  up  my  quarters  with  them  ;  not,  I  confess,  without 
some  misgiving  lest  I  should  be  laying  myself  open  to  the  re- 
proach of  ignorance  in  the  '  rites  and  ceremonies'  of  well-bred 
natives,  so  humorously  related  by  the  Abbe  Hue  in  his  travels 
in  China.  A  country  cousin,  coming  unexpectedly  from  a  great 
distance,  was  invited  to  dine,  and,  after  waiting  some  hours 
and  seeing  no  signs  of  the  meal,  he  suggested  it  was  getting 
late,  when  his  relation  and  host  burst  into  a  torrent  of  abuse. 
*  What !  are  you  so  ignorant  and  so  rustic  as  not  to  know  that 
it  was  my  duty  to  ask  you,  but,  by  the  same  rites  and  cere- 
monies, you  were  bound  to  refuse  ?'  The  three  shaven  bonzes, 
with  sandaled  feet,  but  two  swords  in  their  belts,  were  with 
difficulty  induced  to  raise  their  heads  and  bodies  to  something 
like  an  upright  posture,  and  take  their  leave. 

It  had  rained  heavily  nearly  all  day,  and  most  of  the  party, 
enveloped  in  extemporized  jaowcAos  and  leggins,  manufactured 
of  the  oil-paper  cloaks  of  the  country,  and  some  with  the  still 
more  common  straw  coats  of  the  peasants,  it  is  to  be  feared 
presented  rather  an  incongruous  appearance  as  they  traversed 
the  town,  preceded  by  an  escort  ofDaimios'  officers,  and  paced 
slowly  through  its  interminably  long  streets.  But  for  the 
weather  the  road  would  have  been  very  enjoyable.  It  was 
one  continued  avenue  bordered  by  cryptomeriae — the  cedar  of 
Japan,  as  it  has  been  not  very  correctly  styled,  for  it  is  not  a 
cedar.  A  loud  roar  of  breakers  reached  the  ear,  softened  by 
its  passage  through  a  narrow  belt  of  pines,  which  drew  scanty 
nourishment  from  the  sand  dunes  that  separated  us  from  the 
edge  of  the  bay.    Being  as  wet  as  it  was  possible  to  be,  instead 


Chap.  XX.J        YOSIWARA.— GALE.— MOURIYAMA.  367 

of  halting  as  intended  for  a  midday  meal  and  rest  at  Hara,  we 
pushed  on,  to  the  utter  confusion  and  disgust  of  cooks,  Yaco- 
nins,  and  all  the  host  of  followers,  who,  never  counting  upon 
the  possibility  of  a  change  in  the  order  of  march,  had  already 
got  in  and  begun  to  make  themselves  comfortable.  I  have  no 
doubt  comparisons,  by  no  means  to  our  advantage,  were  drawn 
between  us,  with  our  independent  and  erratic  proceedings,  and 
a  Japanese  Magnate,  whose  progress  never  exceeds  two  or 
three  miles  an  hour,  and  who  otherwise  is  quite  above  sudden 
changes,  and  a  three  leagues'  ride  through  the  pelting  rain. 
We  had  not  long  been  safely  housed  in  Yosiwara  when  signs 
of  a  coming  tempest  were  evident,  and  about  ten  o'clock  at 
night  a  furious  gale  set  in,  with  torrents  of  rain,  and  soon 
showed  by  its  veering  round  the  compass  that  a  typhoon  M-as 
sweeping  its  fatal  circles  along  the  coast.  We  all  thought  of 
the  '  Camilla'  and  her  gallant  crew,  one  of  H.  M.'s  ships,  which 
to  all  calculation  ought  even  then  to  be  near  Atami,  at  the  en- 
trance of  the  Bay  of  Yeddo,  where  the  commander,  Captain 
Colville,  was  to  call  on  his  way  from  Hakodadi. 

A  sad  foreboding  came  upon  more  than  one  of  the  party, 
only  too  truly  verified  in  the  sequel.  The '  Camilla'  left  Hako- 
dadi September  2,  with  one  of  the  Government  interpreters 
and  a  British  merchant  as  passengers  on  board,  and  neither 
ship,  commander,  nor  crew  have  ever  been  heard  of  since. 
Either  in  the  storm  of  the  2d,  or  in  this  of  the  9th,  she  must 
have  gone  down,  with  130  men  in  the  pride  of  their  strength. 

Here  we  remained  at  the  foot  of  Fusiyama,  as  seen  in  the 
sketch,  and  the  next  morning  was  still  sufficiently  boisterous  to 
deter  us  from  an  early  start.  The  aneroid  had  fallen  to  29'50. 
But  about  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  baggage  having 
been  dispatched,  we  started  for  Omio,  the  nearest  of  the  tem- 
ple monasteries,  paid  a  short  visit  of  ceremony  and  thanks,  and 
passed  on  to  MouHyama^  the  last  inhabited  place  on  our  way. 
Great  preparations  had  been  made  for  the  party,  and  extra  bath 
and  stable  accommodation  run  up.  The  inner  sanctum  of  the 
temple  itself,  with  its  altars,  had  been  divided  into  two  and 
screened  otF,  to  give  the  Minister  a  separate  room,  and  the 
chief  priest  hi«nself  was  so  profoundly  impressed  with  the  dig- 
nity of  his  guests,  that  we  began  to  wonder  whether  he  would 
ever  be  induced  to  stand  up  on  his  feet  again.  A  hot  tub  and 
a  cold  douche  after  it  soon  refreshed  us  all.  I  say  a  tub,  for 
such  it  is,  and  I  began  to  admire  the  economy  of  space  and 
other  advantages  it  possesses  over  the  long  slipper-bath.  About 
four  feet  deep,  oval  in  shape,  and  just  long  enough  to  let  an 
adult  sit  down  with  his  knees  very  close  to  his  chest,  as  is  the 


368  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XX. 

Japanese  habitual  mode,  less  water  is  required  to  warm  the 
whole  body,  and  less  space  for  the  bath.  In  many  a  copper 
tube  is  fixed  in  at  the  end,  with  a  grating  at  the  bottom,  into 
which  a  handful  of  charcoal  is  thrown,  and  in  an  hour  a  hot 
bath  is  ready.  Some  such  appliance  as  this  would  be  a  great 
comfort,  and  in  sickness  a  blessing  in  many  an  English  home, 
when  to  get  a  hot  bath  in  a  sick-room  is  a  work  for  the  whole 
household.  A  section  of  one  of  these  baths  was  sent  to  the 
Geographical  Society,  to  show  how  simple  and  easy  the  sys- 
tem is.  In  Italy  a  double  copper  cylinder,  removable  at  pleas- 
ure, is  used  instead,  and  by  either  process  great  facilities  may 
be  gained  in  the  most  economical  way.  The  Japanese,  indeed, 
have  a  perfect  genius  for  attaining  the  most  useful  ends  with 
the  smallest  expenditure  of  material,  and  by  the  simplest  means 
— no  small  merit.  For  instance,  at  the  various  honjens  where 
we  stopped  for  the  night,  we  should  have  been  devoured  by 
the  musquitoes  had  the  landlords  not  come  to  our  rescue  by 
the  simplest  of  all  contrivances — a  musquito  curtain,  open  at 
the  bottom,  made  up  in  the  shape  of  a  parallelogram,  is  let 
down  over  the  mat  (6  feet  by  3)  selected  by  the  sleeper,  a  cord 
is  run  from  each  of  the  four  upper  corners  (into  which  a  sort 
of  eyelet-hole  has  been  worked),  and  four  nails  driven  in  enable 
a  servant  to  suspend  it.  Beneath  this  the  persecuted  martyr 
creeps,  tucking  the  sides  and  ends  under  his  cotton  quilt  or 
mattress,  and  he  may  then  sleep  undisturbed  by  any  thing  that 
flies.  So  our  hospitable  Superior  had  evidently  tried  his  in- 
genuity to  invent  impromptu  seats  for  Europeans,  who  can  not 
sit  upon  their  heels  like  other  men,  or  even  squat  on  the  mats 
with  their  legs  tucked  under  them,  and  it  was  amusing  to  see 
by  what  simple  means  he  had  succeeded.  Half  a  dozen  small 
tubs,  a  plank  nailed  over  each,  and  over  that  a  cotton  quilt 
doubled  into  a  cushion,  materials  at  hand  and  in  daily  use,  and 
we  were  all  seated  like  Christians  at  a  minimum  of  cost  to  our 
host.  Unluckily,  the  table  only  reached  our  knees  when  thus 
elevated ;  but  nobody  can  be  equal  to  so  many  new  exigencies 
in  travelers !  So  we  lowered  our  bodies  to  the  mats  and  used 
the  stools  for  our  elbows,  imitating  the  Roman  habit  of  eating 
reclining,  and  managed  to  eat,  and  drink  too,  without  difficulty. 
The  next  morning  anxious  inquiries  were  made  very  early 
as  to  the  weather ;  and  the  announcement  that  it  was  fine,  and 
the  ascent  practicable,  roused  the  whole  party  soon  after  day- 
break. The  horses  were  promptly  saddled  for  the  last  stage 
up  the  lower  slopes.  Three  martial-looking  priests, '  yoboos,'' 
were  told  off  for  our  guides,  and  a  few  strong  yamabooshe, 
*men  of  the  mountain,'  took  our  railway  rugs  and  a  few  stores, 


Chap.  XX.]  HAKIMONDO.-ATAMI.  369 

in  the  shape  of  coffee,  rice,  and  biscuit,  wherewith  to  sustain  us 
during  the  two  days  and  nights  to  be  occupied  in  the  ascent 
and  return. 

At  first  our  way  led  through  waving  fields  of  corn,  succeeded 
by  a  belt  of  high  rank  grass ;  but  soon  we  entered  the  mazes  of 
the  wood,  which  clings  round  the  base  and  creeps  high  up  the 
sides  of  the  mountain,  clothing  the  shoulders  of  the  towering 
peak,  like  the  shaggy  mane  of  a  lion,  with  increased  majesty. 
At  first  we  found  trees  of  large  growth,  goodly  trunks  of  the 
oak,  the  pine,  and  the  beech,  and  came  upon  many  traces  of  the 
fury  with  which  the  typhoon  had  swept  across.  Large  trees 
had  been  broken  short  off,  and  others  uprooted.  One  of  these, 
broken  off,  had  been  thrown  right  across  our  path,  and  com- 
pelled us  either  to  scramble  over  or  creep  under  its  massive 
trunk.  At  Hakimondo  we  left  the  horses,  and  the  last  trace 
of  permanent  habitation  or  the  haunts  of  men.  Soon  after  the 
wood  became  thinner  and  more  stunted  in  growth,  while  the 
beech  and  birch  took  the  place  of  the  oak  and  pine.  Just  be- 
fore we  entered  the  forest-ground  a  lark  rose  on  the  wing,  the 
first  I  bad  ever  seen  or  heard  in  Japan.  Before  we  left  the 
belt  of  wood  we  heard  many  stories  of  the  wild  animals  to 
which  it  gave  shelter.  Surprised  at  the  number,  an  appeal  was 
made  to  the  Japanese  officer  attached  to  us  as  interpreter : 
'  Oh !  certainly,  quite  true ;  only  there  are  millions.''  And  noth- 
ing could  shake  his  testimony;  but  this  is  not  the  first  time 
we  have  observed  the  absence  of  all  definite  notions  of  number 
beyond  a  few  hundreds.  I  am  satisfied,  when  the  Ministers 
were  told  we  had  exacted  eight  million  taels  of  silver  from  the 
Chinese,  that  they  merely  knew  we  intended  to  convey  the  idea 
of  having  demanded  a  very  heavy  sum. 

Whatever  may  be  the  ferm  naturm  in  this  region,  there  is 
no  doubt  a  large  area  of  jungle  and  forest  to  give  cover.  At 
Atami,  later,  we  saw  frequent  traces  of  the  boar ;  deer  must 
be  plentiful  also,  since  even  to  a  foreigner  the  price  of  a  large 
stag  docs  not  exceed  twenty-five  shillings  at  Yokohama.  We 
soon  lost  all  traces  of  life,  however,  vegetable  or  animal.  A 
solitary  sparrow  or  two — the  most  universal  of  all  birds,  it 
would  seem — alone  flitted  occasionally  across  oin*  path.  In 
the  winding  ascent  over  the  rubble  and  scoria?  of  the  mount- 
ain, which  alone  is  seen  after  ascending  about  half  way,  little 
huts  or  caves,  as  these  resting-places  are  called,  partly  dug  out 
and  roofed  over  to  give  refuge  to  the  pilgrims,  appeared. 
There  are,  I  think,  eleven  from  Hakimondo  to  the  summit,  and 
they  are  generally  about  a  couple  of  miles  asunder.  In  one  of 
these  we  took  up  our  qiiarters  for  the  night,  and  laid  down 

Q2 


370  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XX. 

our  rugs,  too  tired  to  be  very  delicate,  Nevei'theless,  the  cold, 
and  the  occupants  we  found  former  pilgrims  had  left,  precluded 
much  sleep.  Daylight  was  rather  a  relief,  and  after  a  cup  of 
hot  coffee  and  a  biscuit,  we  commenced  the  upper  half  of  the 
ascent.  The  first  part,  after  we  left  the  horses,  had  occupied 
about  four  hours'  steady  work,  and  we  reached  our  sleeping- 
station  a  little  before  sunset,  lava  and  scoriae  every  where 
around.  The  clouds  were  sailing  far  below  our  feet,  and  a 
vast  panorama  of  hill  and  plain,  bounded  by  the  sea,  stretched 
far  away.  We  looked  down  upon  the  summits  of  the  Hakoni 
range,  being  evidently  far  above  their  level,  and  we  could  dis- 
tinctly see  the  lake  lying  in  one  of  the  hollows.  The  last  half 
of  the  ascent  is  by  far  the  most  arduous,  growing  more  steep 
as  each  station  is  passed.  The  first  rays  of  the  sun  just  touch- 
ed with  a  line  of  fight  the  broad  waters  of  the  Pacific  as  they 
wash  the  coast  when  we  made  our  start.  The  first  station 
seemed  very  near,  and  was  reached  within  the  hour ;  but  each 
step  now  became  more  difficult.  The  path,  if  such  the  zigzag 
may  be  called  which  our  guides  took,  often  led  directly  over 
fragments  of  out-jutting  rocks,  while  the  loose  scoriae  prevent- 
ed firm  footing,  and  added  much  to  the  fatigue.  The  air  be- 
came more  rarefied,  and  perceptibly  affected  the  breathing.  At 
last  the  third  station  was  passed,  and  a  strong  effort  carried  us 
to  the  fourth,  the  whole  party  by  this  time  straggling  at  long 
intervals.  This  was  now  the  last  between  us  and  the  summit. 
It  did  not  seem  so  far  until  a  few  figures  on  the  edge  of  the 
crater  furnished  a  means  of  measurement,  and  they  looked 
painfully  diminutive.  The  last  stage,  more  rough  and  precipi- 
tous than  all  the  preceding,  had  this  fkrther  disadvantage,  that 
it  came  after  the  fatigue  of  all  the  others.  More  than  an  hour's 
toil,  with  frequent  stoppages  for  breath  and  rest  to  aching  legs 
and  spine,  were  needed ;  and  more  than  one  of  our  number 
felt  very  near  the  end  of  their  strength  before  the  last  step 
placed  the  happy  pilgrim  on  the  topmost  stone,  and  enabled 
him  to  look  down  the  yawning  crater.  This  is  a  great  oval 
opening,  with  jagged  lips,  estimated  by  Lieut.  Robinson,  with 
such  means  of  measurement  as  he  could  command,  at  about 
1100  yards  in  length,  with  a  mean  width  of  600,  and  is  proba- 
bly about  350  in  depth.  Looking  down  on  the  other  side, 
which  had  a  northern  aspect,  there  seemed  a  total  absence  of 
vegetation,  even  on  the  lower  levels,  and  the  rich  country  we 
had  left  was  completely  hid  by  a  canopy  of  clouds  drifting  far 
below.  Water  boiled  at  184°  of  Fahr.  The  estimated  height 
of  the  edge  of  the  crater  above  the  level  of  the  sea  was 
13,977  feet,  and  the  highest  peak  14,177.     At   our  resting- 


Chap.  XX.J 


FUSIYAMA.— PILGRIMS. 


3V3 


place  on  the  top  ot  Fusiyama,  the  latitude  was  calculated  35° 
21'  N.,  longitude  138°  42'  E.  Variation  of  compass  at  ditto 
3°  2'  W.     Temperature  of  air  in  sun  at  noon  54°  Fahr. 

The  Japanese,  who  perform  this  pilgrimage  from  religious 
motives,  are  generally  dressed  in  white  garments,  which  they 
are  careful  to  have  stamped  with  various  mystic  characters 
and  idols'  images  by  the  bonzes  located  there  during  the  sea- 
son for  that  purpose.  And  on  the  sleeves  of  many  of  the  pil- 
grims scallop-shells  appear  —  a  strange  coincidence  which  I 
have  never  been  able  to  explain.  The  origin  of  the  pilgrimage 
is  traced  back  to  an  ancient  date,  when  a  holy  man,  the  found- 
er of  the  Sintoo  religion  (apparently  the  oldest  in  Japan),  took 
up  his  residence  in  this  mountain ;  and,  since  his  death,  his 
spirit  is  still  held  to  have  influence  to  bestow  health  and  vari- 
ous other  blessings  on  those  who  made  the  pilgrimage  in  hon- 
or of  his  memory. 


PILOBIMS  CM  THE  BOAD. 

The  volcano  has  long  been  extinct ;  the  latest  eruption  re- 
corded was  in  1707.  The  tradition  is  that  the  mountain  itself 
appeared  in  a  single  night  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  a  lake 
of  equal  dimensions  making  its  appearance  near  Miaco  at  the 
same  hour.  The  time  actually  spent  in  climbing  up  to  the 
sunmiit  was  about  eight  hours,  but  the  descent  occupied  little 
UJore  than  three.     We  slept  two  nights  on  the  mountain,  and 


374  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XXL 

had  greatly  to  congratulate  ourselves  on  the  weather,  liaving 
fallen  upon  the  only  two  fine  days  out  of  six  that  were  not  bad, 
and  escaped  the  typhoon  while  safely  housed  at  the  foot.  As 
we  descended  on  the  last  morning  there  was  a  thick  Scotch 
mist,  which  soon  changed  into  a  drenching  rain.  We  only 
found  patches  of  snow  here  and  there  near  the  summit,  but  on 
our  return  to  Yeddo,  three  weeks  later,  we  saw  it  completely 
covered. 

We  had  thus  succeeded  in  visiting  the  *  matchless'  mountain 
in  the  only  interval  of  fine  weathei",  before  the  setting  in  of 
winter  would  have  made  it  impossible.  The  prediction  of  the 
Ministers  that  we  were  too  late  was  thus  very  near  indeed 
being  verified ;  but,  like  many  other  prophets  of  evil,  they  did 
much  themselves  to  make  it  come  to  pass.  From  Kanagawa 
I  heard  that,  when  they  were  visited  by  the  typhoon  there,  the 
report  was  circulated  that  it  was  a  sign  of  the  anger  of  the 
gods  at  the  foreigner  profaning  the  sacred  precincts  of  their 
stormy  home.  But  I  am  by  no  means  certain  this  was  not  of 
foreign  invention,  for  neither  during  the  journey  thither,  nor 
among  the  bonzes  at  the  temples  there,  did  we  perceive  the 
slightest  indication  of  jealousy,  or  a  disposition  to  consider  the 
visit  as  an  intrusion  on  our  part,  and  a  desecration.  Nor  do  I 
believe  any  feeling  of  this  kind  existed  among  the  Japanese. 
So,  in  like  manner,  some  one  told  Admiral  Hope  that,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  British  Minister  traveling  along  the  Tocado,  the 
Tycoon  was  precluded  using  it  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  Mikado,  as 
it  would  require  to  be  broken  up  after  such  a  desecration  and 
remade.  I  made  some  inquiries  on  the  subject  among  the  Jap- 
anese, and  all  denied  any  knowledge  of  law,  custom,  or  tradi- 
tion which  could  afford  foundation  for  such  a  report ;  and  on 
Moriyama's  coming  to  England  with  me,  I  satisfied  myself  it 
was  purely  an  invention  of  foreign  origin,  and  somewhat  too 
readily  credited  and  embodied  in  the  dispatches  of  the  Admi- 
ral. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

The  Snlphnr  Springs  of  Atami. — Village  Life  in  Japan. — Paper  Manufac- 
tory.— The  Moxa. 

We  left  our  hospitable  quarters  at  Omio  on  the  morning  of 
the  13th  September.  The  rain  that  pursued  us  down  the  low- 
er slopes  of  Fusiyama  still  continued,  but  I  detei'mined  to  push 
forward,  and  accordingly,  about  nine  o'clock,  we  mounted  our 


Chap.  XXL]      ROAD  TO  ATAMI.— AN  OBSTACLE.  375 

horses,  and,  passing  throuojh  Yosiwara,  arrived  at  Harra  for  a 
noonday  meal,  fortunate  in  Laving  had  only  a  few  passing 
showers  to  encounter. 

We  left  Harra  again  for  Missima  at  6  P.M.,  and  had  a  beau- 
tiful ride  along  a  sanded  avenue,  through  Noomads,  and  by 
the  banks  of  a  fine  river,  running  strong  and  fast  bet  ween 
steep  banks.  We  were  met  by  two  detachments  in  succession 
of  Daimios'  officers,  and  accompanied  by  them  a  considerable 
distance.  As  we  passed  the  entrance  to  each  of  the  residen- 
ces, an  officer  sat  in  state  at  the  gate,  as  the  representative  of 
his  lord,  surrounded  by  numerous  attendants,  with  whom  a 
salutation  of  courtesy  was  exchanged.  Thus  honored  with  es- 
corts and  Yaconins,  we  pursued  our  way  through  the  avenues 
of  pines  and  cryptomerias,  and  the  smoothest  of  roads,  little 
dreaming  that  any  thing  else  was  in  store  for  us.  We  had, 
however,  hardly  taken  leave  of  our  last  escort — the  two  Jap- 
anese officers  of  my  own  party,  always  sent  in  front  to  prepare 
quarters,  being  an  hour  in  advance,  and  the  rest,  with  all  our 
servants,  far  behind — when,  at  a  turn  of  the  road,  we  came 
suddenly  on  the  broad  river  so  lately  admired  as  it  ran  be- 
tween deep  banks  nearly  parallel  with  the  road,  but  which  now 
lay  across  our  path,  swelled  with  the  rains  and  overflowing  its 
banks.  The  bridge  we  had  crossed  in  coining  only  appeared 
somewhere  about  the  middle  of  the  heavy  stream,  which  poured 
its  waters  tumultuously  over  all  obstacles.  Night  was  coming 
on,  swiftly  too,  as  is  its  wont  here,  and  only  a  single  groom 
and  his  '  help'  were  on  the  spot  of  all  our  people.  A  few  noisy 
villagers  were  there,  but  showed  no  sort  of  desire  to  assist  us 
in  the  dilemma,  and  were,  besides,  not  very  intelligible.  I 
could  not  help  being  struck  and  half  amused  with  the  sudden 
contrast.  But  half  an  hour  before  escorted  with  every  mark 
of  honor  and  respect,  and  now  almost  alone  on  the  banks  of  a 
river  rushing  wildly  and  menacingly  across  our  path,  with  a 
fair  chance  of  being  swept  into  its  boiling  eddies  and  drowned, 
one  and  all  of  us,  like  stray  cattle,  in  the  attempt  to  make  our 
way  across.  Instant  decision  was  necessary.  That,  indeed, 
was  the  only  thing  quite  clear ;  either  we  must  go  back,  with 
the  risk  of  the  mischief  increasing  and  being  detained  two  or 
three  days,  or  else  face  the  danger,  whatever  it  might  be,  and 
make  good  our  passage.  One  of  the  grooms  tried  to  lead  a 
horse  across,  and  having  finally  succeeded,  with  the  help  of  a 
native  who  knew  the  locality,  not  without  some  difficulty  and 
risk  to  both,  I  got  rid  of  my  heavy  accoutrements  and  cloak, 
and  tried  my  fate.  It  was  rather  nervous  work — already  dark, 
the  waters  increasing  each  moment  and  rushing  past  with 


376  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XXI. 

great  velocity,  every  thing  depended  on  the  footing,  which,  of 
course,  could  not  be  seen.  The  bridge,  however,  was  gained 
by  all  with  safety,  and  the  whole  party  '  quitte  pour  la  peur,* 
and  a  partial  ducking,  were  enabled  to  mount  their  horses  on 
the  other  side.  But  it  was  now  pitch  dark,  and  one  of  the 
steeds  seemed  perversely  bent  on  plunging  back  into  the  riv- 
er, out  of  which  he  certainly  would  never  have  made  his  way 
again  alive.  After  groping  our  way  up  an  abrupt  ascent  and 
over  some  rough  road  for  a  short  time,  we  were  finally  met  by 
a  party  of  the  Municipal  authorities  of  Missima,  who  came  with 
lanterns  and  jingling  staves  to  escort  us  in,  now  that  it  was 
ascertained  we  had  not  been  drowned  in  fording  the  river! 
The  accident  caused  no  small  detention  to  the  baggage,  so  that 
it  was  late  before  Ave  settled  down,  got  dry  things  and  some- 
thing to  eat  in  our  old  quarters,  which  we  were  not  sorry  to 
regain.  After  the  meal  had  been  dispatched,  and  we  were  all 
grouped  about,  talking  over  the  adventure  in  its  various  inci- 
dents, serious  and  comic,  one  of  the  party  happened  to  raise 
his  eyes  to  the  ledge  just  above  his  head,  and,  within  a  few 
inches  of  him,  saw  the  head  of  a  fine  snake,  the  body  curled 
into  a  sort  of  lover's  knot.  The  proximity  was  too  close  to  be 
pleasant,  notwithstanding  the  general  harmlessness  ascribed  to 
the  snake  species  in  Japan  as  in  China,  and  there  was  an  im- 
mediate demand  for  some  weapon ;  at  last  a  whip  was  pro- 
duced, but  he  had  already  begun  to  make  his  exit  through  the 
bars  of  a  grated  opening  into  the  balcony,  and,  with  only  some 
damage  to  his  tail,  he  made  good  his  escape.  This  closed  our 
day's  adventures,  and  soon  every  body  was  stretched  on  the 
mats,  under  their  musquito  curtains,  and  fast  asleep. 

The  next  day,  September  14,  we  mounted  early,  with  beau- 
tiful weather,  and  took  our  way  across  the  mountainous  penin- 
sula which  separates  Missima  from  the  sea-coast.  We  first 
crossed  a  broad  valley  beautifully  diversified  with  clumps  of 
trees,  hedgerows,  and  winding  rivulets.  Nothing  could  be 
richer  than  the  soil,  or  the  teeming  variety  of  its  produce. 
The  whole  plain  was  surrounded  by  an  amphitheatre  of  culti- 
vated hills,  and  beyond  were  mountains  stretching  higher  and 
farther,  with  a  shaggy  mantle  of  scrub  and  pine.  Little  snug- 
looking  hamlets  and  homesteads  were  nestled  among  the  trees 
or  under  the  hills,  and  here  and  there  the  park  walls,  and 
glimpses  of  the  avenues  leading  to  Daimios'  country  residen- 
ces appeared.  Much  has  been  heard  of  the  despotic  sway  of 
the  feudal  lords,  and  the  oppression  under  which  all  the  labor- 
ing classes  toil  and  groan ;  but  it  is  impossible  to  traverse 
these  well-cultivated  valleys,  and  mark   the  happy,  content- 


Chap.  XXI.]       ROAD  TO  ATAMI.— LARGE  TREE.  377 

ed,  and  well-to-do-looking  populations  which  have  their  home 
amid  so  much  plenty,  and  believe  we  see  a  land  entirely  ty- 
rant-ridden, and  impoverished  by  exactions.  On  the  contrary, 
the  impression  is  irresistibly  borne  in  upon  the  mind  that  Eu- 
rope can  not  show  a  happier  or  better-fed  peasantry,  or  a  cli- 
mate and  soil  so  genial  or  bounteous  in  their  gifts.  The  rich- 
est proprietor  in  this  district  of  Idzoo  was  the  same  who  fur- 
nished our  first  guard  of  honor  through  his  domains — Agawa 
Mirozayamang  by  name,  and  he  is  not  a  Daimio.  We  were 
told  that  he  had  refused  to  be  ennobled,  that  he  might  escape 
the  penance  of  a  yearly  visit  and  residence  at  Yeddo,  with  oth- 
er burdens.  One  could  not  but  approve  his  taste ;  and  as  I 
passed  the  gates  that  led  up  to  his  house  between  a  double  row 
of  noble  pine-trees,  I  thought  he  might  easily  find  much  in  his 
country  life  to  compensate  him  for  the  barren  honors  and  bur- 
densome dignities  which  the  Tycoon  has  in  his  gift,  and  fig- 
ured to  myself  an  existence  not  unlike  that  of  a  wealthy  land- 
owner in  England,  whose  pleasure  it  is  to  spend  his  days  on 
his  own  estates  and  among  his  tenants.  The  variety  of  the 
produce  through  the  breadth  of  the  valley  was  gieat.  Inter- 
spersed among  fields  of  waving  rice  ripening  to  the  harvest 
were  many  plots  of  tobacco  and  cotton ;  the  brinjall,  or  egg 
fruit,  excellent  in  curries ;  the  succulent  aram,  with  its  lotus- 
like leaf,  and  the  sweet  potato,  all  were  here ;  while  the  per- 
simmon with  its  rich  red  fruit,  and  the  orange-trees  with  their 
golden  produce,  were  grouped  round  the  different  hamlets  and 
villages.  As  we  passed  out  of  the  valley  into  an  opening 
winding  far  among  the  hills,  we  came  upon  a  little  village  half 
hid  by  a  mass  of  fine  cryptonierias  rising  a  hundred  feet  or 
more  in  a  straight  stem.  One  of  these  we  measured,  and  found 
it  to  be  exactly  16  feet  3  inches  in  girth.  Penetrating  farther 
up  the  gorge,  the  banks  were  bright  with  the  wild  pink  hy- 
drangeas ;  and  as  we  ascended  higher  and  higher,  the  harebell, 
with  its  graceful  flower,  appeared  every  where.  When  we 
gained  the  higher  ridges,  the  views  each  step  disclosed,  look- 
ing backward  across  the  valley  and  toward  the  sea,  were  in- 
describably picturesque,  and  sometimes  grand  in  their  frame- 
work of  wooded  hills  and  terraced  mountains.  In  the  heart 
of  the  mountain  regions  we  came  upon  a  pretty  secluded  vil- 
lage of  about  a  hundred  houses,  and  were  met  at  the  entrance 
by  the  Otono^  or  mayor,  and  his  staff,  by  whom  we  were  courte- 
ously entreated  to  dismount  and  rest.  I  did  not  feel  disposed 
to  stop,  but  Mr.  Eusden,  the  secretary,  was  behind,  and,  as  I 
had  anticipated,  he  gladdened  the  oflicial  by  resting  and  par- 
taking of  his  refreshment.    In  passing  through  these  mountain 


378  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XXI. 

districts  we  occasionally  came  upon  groups  of  peasantry,  evi- 
dently collected  from  all  the  surrounding  hamlets  for  the  pur- 
pose of  seeing  the  strangers,  perhaps  the  greatest  novelty  of 
their  lives.  There  they  sat  on  some  knoll  or  small  hillock  by 
the  roadside,  or  kneeling  on  their  mats,  waiting  patiently  the 
uncertain  hour  of  our  arrival.  I  hope  so  much  perseverance 
did  not  go  without  its  reward  in  the  gratification  they  experi- 
enced. There  is  always  some  pleasure  in  accomplishing  an 
object  for  which  we  have  made  either  effort  or  sacrifice,  even 
if  the  object  prove,  on  better  knowledge,  little  worth  the  trouble 
taken.  It  is  well  it  should  be  so,  for  we  make  so  many  false 
estimates  of  value,  and  bad  calculations  as  to  the  final  cost,  as 
well  as  the  true  worth  of  mundane  things,  that,  but  for  this 
redeeming  condition,  there  would  be  a  serious  increase  to  the 
pains  and  penalties  of  a  life's  errors. 

The  descent  was  rather  trying  to  the  horses,  and  in  parts 
very  steep,  but  for  several  miles  the  worst  places  had  evidently 
been  quite  recently  put  under  repair,  and  apparently  for  us, 
since  this  is  not  a  route  any  Japanese  of  rank  was  very  likely 
to  travel.  About  noon  we  came  in  sight  of  the  little  town  of 
Atami,  lying  in  a  narrow  gorge  close  to  the  shore,  and  from 
the  centre  of  the  houses,  in  two  or  three  places,  we  saw  a  great 
jet  of  steam  from  the  mineral  springs.  About  half  a  mile  off 
the  officials  of  the  place  met  us  to  form  our  escort,  and  about 
noon  we  were  ushered  into  the  principal  bathing  establishment, 
generally  reserved  for  Daimios  and  their  families,  and  were 
agreeably  surprised  to  find  it  far  superior  in  accommodation 
to  any  thing  we  had  ventured  to  anticipate.  Not  only  was 
there  a  range  of  half  a  dozen  roomy  baths  filled  direct  from  the 
source,  steaming  and  boiling  within  the  court-yard  of  the  house, 
but  a  suite  of  apartments  of  good  size  opened  on  to  a  perfect 
specimen  of  a  Japanese  garden ;  and  a  broad  flight  of  steps  to 
the  right  led  to  a  couple  of  rooms  on  a  first  floor,  with  a  bal- 
cony commanding  a  beautiful  view  of  the  sea.  In  these  I  be- 
gan immediately  to  install  myself  A  low  table  formed  a  bed- 
stead for  my  air  bed.  My  musquito  curtain  was  stretched  over 
it,  and  in  a  few  hours  another  of  the  same  tables,  with  legs  two 
feet  higher,  was  knocked  up.  One  of  Brown's  portable  easy- 
chairs,  which  are  heartily  to  be  commended  and  recommended, 
a  small  folding  table,  and  two  or  three  camp-stools,  with  the 
aid  of  a  few  nails  for  caps,  glass,  traveling-sack,  etc.,  soon  sur- 
rounded me  with  all  a  traveler's  luxuries  and  belongings,  and 
gave  an  air  of  comfort  to  the  two  little  matted  rooms,  twelve 
feet  square.  Both  were  provided  with  closets,  sliding  doors, 
and  shelves,  making  admirable  wardrobes.     And  here  I  set  up 


Chap.  XXI.]  *  POOR  TOBY.*  3^9 

my  flag,  determiiied  to  try  the  sanitary  effects  of  rest,  sea  air, 
and  the  mineral  springs  of  Atarai. 

The  life  we  led  in  this  secluded  watering-place  was  one  of 
little  variety — the  arrival  of  a  courier  and  the  death  of  a  favor- 
ite Scotch  terrier,  my  constant  and  faithful  companion,  were 
the  only  events.  One  must  have  led  the  isolated  life  of  a  For- 
eign Minister  in  Japan  to  realize  the  blank  which  the  loss  even 
of  an  attached  dog  creates.  So  much  of  disinterested  affection 
and  trust  had  passed  out  of  the  world,  and  more  of  companion- 
ship than  those  who  have  never  been  much  alone  can  well  un- 
derstand, perhaps  !  Some  of  the  best  traits  of  the  Japanese 
character  came  out  very  favorably  on  this  occasion.  'Toby' 
had  many  good  friends  among  my  servants.  My  head  betto, 
as  soon  as  he  heard  of  the  death,  came  himself  to  put  him  in  his 
basket-shroud  and  under  the  sod.  I  asked  the  proprietor's 
leave  to  bury  him  in  his  pretty  garden  under  the  shade  of  a 
tree,  and  he  instantly  came  himself  and  helped  to  dig  the  grave. 
A  group  of  assistants  of  all  ranks  gathered  round  with  mourn- 
ful faces,  as  though  one  of  their  own  kind  had  passed  away. 
He  was  folded  up  in  a  mat,  some  of  the  beans  he  was  so  fond 
of  were  put  in  the  grave  with  him,  and  a  branch  of  evergreens 
inserted  at  the  head,  which  was  scrupulously  laid  to  the  north. 
The  priest  of  the  temple  brought  water  and  incense  sticks  to 
burn,  and  then  a  rough  tombstone  to  mark  the  spot  was  laid 
on  his  grave.  They  are  really  a  kindly  people  when  not  per- 
verted by  their  rulers  and  prompted  to  hostility.  When  I  pro- 
posed to  send  a  tablet  my  host  was  equally  ready,  and  assured 
me  it  should  be  carefully  placed  over  the  head.  I  had  begun 
to  forget  I  was  in  Japan,  so  much  good  will  was  shown,  and  so 
few  difficulties  made  even  to  the  gratification  of  a  whim.  But 
in  one  sense  I  reckoned  without  my  true  hosts,  the  Government 
officials.  I  can  not  stop  to  tell  how  much  trouble  the  luckless 
tablet  entailed  upon  me  before  it  actually  reached  its  destina- 
tion. How  it  was  pretended  that  the  town  governor  of  Yeddo 
must  first  give  his  permission ;  and  that,  according  to  the  law 
of  Japan,  no  stone  could  be  placed  any  where  without  official 
sanction.  Nor,  after  it  was  up  (which  I  only  effected  by  tak- 
ing advantage  of  one  of  our  ships  passing  the  port  and  land- 
ing it  on  the  spot),  what  grave  remonstrances  followed  from 
the  Ministers  because  one  of  the  Legation  had  visited  Atami 
'against  the  treaty.'  Well  might  I  write  on  his  tombstone 
'  Poor  Toby,'  for  it  had  been  h.ard  work  to  preserve  him  where 
he  died  from  total  oblivion. 

The  Spas  of  Atami  are  not  gay  as  a  place  of  residence.  Be- 
yond the  interest  attaching  to  the  study  of  village  life  in  Japan, 


380  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XXI. 

there  is  nothing  whatever  to  amuse  or  give  occupation.  It 
h.'is  an  agi*icultural  and  fishing  population  of  some  1400  souls. 
They  cultivate  their  fields  of  rice  and  millet  and  a  few  vegeta- 
bles. The  bay  provides  them  with  fish,  chiefly  at  this  season 
mackerel  and  a  sort  of  pomfret,  with  lobster  and  aioabee  (a  large 
species  of  mussel,  with  a  shell  coated  with  mother-of-pearl). 
Some  of  our  party  occasionally  went  out  fishing  and  brought 
back  very  curious  specimens  of  the  finny  species.  One,  a  flat 
fish,  about  the  size  of  the  hand,  had  long  thread-like  prolonga- 
tions from  the  tail  and  fins,  something  like  the  tentacula  of  in- 
sects, but  several  inches  in  length.  Another,  and  smaller  fish, 
was  hard  as  bone  all  over,  with  a  thick  gibbous  head,  which 
they  call  the  '  horsefish.'  Of  this  I  found  a  good  Japanese 
drawing,  and  the  following  wood-cut  is  a  faithful  copy.     A 


HOB8EFI8H. 


third  kind,  of  which  no  specimen  was  preserved,  the  fishermen 
believe  to  be  poisonous,  and  always  throw  overboard  again  as 
soon  as  they  catch  it.  There  are  a  few  shops  in  the  place  for 
the  sale  of  some  of  the  more  common  necessaries,  the  few  things 
which  are  alone  required  in  their  very  simple  mode  of  life.  The 
only  manufacture  is  that  of  paper,  and  the  making  of  boxes  of 
many  devices,  cups,  platters,  trays,  and  a  few  toys  for  Yeddo 
and  other  markets,  made  either  of  the  variegated  wood  of  the 
camphor  or  pine,  which  these  hills  supply.  These  are  very 
cleverly  turned  and  neatly  put  together,  with  the  simplest  and 
rudest  instruments.  Their  only  lathe  is  a  horizontal  spindle, 
turned  by  a  boy  with  two  straps,  holding  one  in  each  hand, 
which  he  pulls  alternately.  To  one  end  of  the  shaft  the  object 
of  manufacture  is  fixed  for  the  other  workman,  and  they  give 
the  last  polish  to  the  varnish  by  the  fingers  with  a  little  whit- 
ing. The  women,  with  a  primitive  loom,  may  also  be  seen  here 
and  there  in  the  cottages  weaving  cotton.  The  mineral  springs 
are  spread  over  a  considerable  space,  bubbling  up  in  divers 
places  over  the  spot  where  a  source  exists.  Near  several  of 
these,  and  in  connection  with  the  source,  a  few  stones  are  placed 
so  as  to  allow  the  steam  to  escape,  and  here  they  boil  their  tea 
and  cook  their  vegetables  without  expenditure  of  fuel.     There 


Ch-vp.  XXI.]  THE  MINERAL  WATERS.  381 

are  wooden  baths  at  all  the  places,  but  they  did  not  seem  in 
constant  requisition.  The  waters  appeared  to  be  all  the  same 
— .saline,  with  a  soup^on  only  of  sulphur.  They  are  very  slight- 
ly aperient,  and  are  held  among  the  natives  to  be  good  for  rheu- 
matism, diseases  of  the  skin,  and  bad  eyes.  But  before  ray  ar- 
rival they  never  drank  the  waters,  or  turned  the  steam  to  ac- 
count for  vapor-baths.  At  the  large  vent  of  the  springs,  which 
boils  up  with  a  loud  explosion  of  steam  some  six  or  eight  times 
in  the  twenty-four  hours,  I  had  a  little  hut  built,  which  made  an 
excellent  vapor-bath ;  and  the  Yaconins,  following  my  example, 
began  to  drink  the  waters. 

We  had  at  first  a  continuance  of  rain  and  wind,  but  later  our 
weather  was  very  propitious  —  bright,  clear,  and  pleasantly 
warm.  The  maximum  range  of  the  thermometer  was  80°  of 
Fahrenheit. 

The  first  fine  breezy  day,  with  gathering  clouds  and  fitful 
sunshine,  giving  picturesque  and  ever-changing  effects  to  sea 
and  mountain,  we  went  three  or  four  miles  in  the  direction  of 
Odawara^  across  the  mountain,  where  a  number  of  hot  springs 
also  exist,  but  all  tasteless.  Two  of  them  come  down,  or  are 
let  down  over  a  cliff"  so  as  to  make  a  d(mche,  under  one  of  which 
we  found  an  old  woman,  and  under  the  other  something  much 
rarer  in  Japan  than  old  women  taking  their  bath — a  mare.  It 
had  a  bad  sore  on  its  back,  which  they  were  bathing  with  the 
hot  water.  The  way  to  these  springs  leads  through  a  ravine, 
down  which,  overhung  with  shrubs,  evergreens  all,  and  wild 
hydrangeas  in  flower,  a  mountain  stream  rushes  in  cascades, 
making  pleasant  music.  Scattered  along  the  side  of  the  mount- 
ain road  are  a  few  peasants'  homes,  and  here  and  there  a  tem- 
ple or  a  wayside  shrine,  while  the  vegetation  speaks  of  a  genial 
clime,  where  Nature 

Hangs  in  shade  the  orange  bright, 
Like  lamps  of  gold  in  a  green  night, 
And  throws  the  melons  at  onr  feet — 

as  Andrew  Marvel  writes  of 

The  remote  Bermudas  rich 
In  ocean's  bosom  uncspied — 

Shakspeare's  '  still  vexed  Bermoothes ;'  and  the  rough  swell 
of  the  Pacific,  setting  on  the  pebbly  and  rocky  shore,  keeps  up 
the  similitude.  The  coast  in  other  respects,  with  its  bold,  pic- 
turesque features,  resembles  very  much  the  Biscayan  coast 
from  San  Sebastian  and  Bilboa  to  Santander.  Nor  is  the  cli- 
mate very  different,  only  less  severe  in  winter.  Even  the  high- 
est crest  of  Fusiyama  scarce  preserves  a  remnant  of  its  snow- 
^llroud  through  the  months  of  July  and  August.     From  the 


382  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XXI. 

vicinity  of  these  mineral  springs,  nitre,  in  considerable  quanti- 
ties and  purity,  appears  to  be  collected  for  export,  and  I  saw 
some  being  brought  in  as  I  returned. 

I  tried  in  vain  to  get  some  more  precise  information  about 
the  land  tenure  here,  the  Government  administration,  and  the 
amount  of  taxation.  Unfortunately,  most  of  our  inquiries  had 
to  go  through  Matahe,  the  official  interpreter,  of  whom  it  may 
truly  be  said,  as  of  Sydney  Smith's  Scotchman,  that  it  required 
a  trephining  operation  to  get  a  new  idea  into  his  head,  and 
something  much  more  severe  to  get  a  rational  or  trustworthy 
answer  out  of  it.  He  either  was  or  affected  to  be  profoundly 
ignorant  of  his  own  country,  its  statistics  and  administration, 
though  with  some  smattering  knowledge  of  foreign  countries. 
At  the  same  time,  he  had  a  bold  fashion  of  giving  off-hand  any 
answer  that  promised  to  rid  him  of  farther  inquiry,  without  the 
slightest  regard  to  the  facts !  Furthermore,  he  deluded  him- 
self by  fancying  he  knew  things  upon  the  vaguest  possible 
conception  of  their  true  meaning,  sometimes  with  none  at  all. 
On  one  occasion,  Mr.  Eusden,  reproaching  him  with  the  many 
false  alarms  and  statements  made  respecting  the  route,  and 
the  difficulties  of  the  ascent  of  Fusiyama,  asked  him  if  he  had 
ever  heard  of  the  fable  of  the  wolf  and  the  shepherd-boy. 
'  Yes,  he  thought  he  had !'  '  Did  he  know  what  a  fable  meant  ?' 
'  Oh  yes ;  a  legend  or  tradition  of  something  supposed  to  have 
happened  long  ago,  which  sometimes  was  true  and  sometimes 
was  false.' 

Not  a  promising  informant  this ;  and  when  I  put  him  on  the 
rack,  as  the  Juniors  used  to  call  it,  and  insisted  on  his  giving  an 
explanation  of  things  observed  in  Japan  which  should  be  both 
credible  and  intelligible,  he  would  screw  his  head  on  one  side, 
and  look  very  like  a  man  going  to  choke  under  some  strangling 
process.  One  is  thus  reduced  to  draw,  somewhat  at  hazard, 
conclusions  from  what  can  be  observed  of  the  people,  and,  for 
the  most  part,  only  of  what  lies  on  the  surface.  Upon  what 
tenure  these  lands  are  held  (said  to  belong  to,  or  to  be  admin- 
istered by  the  proprietor  of  Idzoo,  the  courteous  Agawa  Faro- 
zayamang)  I  could  make  nothing  out — whether  for  himself,  as 
Lord  of  the  Manor,  or  steward  of  the  Tycoon,  it  seemed  impos- 
sible to  ascertain.  There  appeared  to  be  some  resident  officer 
there,  acting  in  his  name.  Several  of  the  shopkeepers  were 
Yaconins,  as  also  was  the  proprietor  of  the  hotel  and  bathing- 
house.  There  may  he  a  good  deal  of  tyranny  and  oppression, 
but  the  people  show  no  marks  of  it,  any  more  than  of  grinding 
exactions  and  abject  poverty ;  though  of  course  a  small  fishing 
village  is  not  a  place  where  people  are  otherwise  than  poor. 


Chap.  XXI.]  FEUDALISM  REPRODUCED.  883 

Seeing  there  are  no  representalive  institutions,  no  free  press, 
no  fVoedom  of  any  kind  in  the  forms  inseparably  associated  in 
an  Englishman's  mind  with  liberty,  it  may  be  necessary  to 
guard  against  a  bias  and  a  leaning  to  d  priori  conclusions,  ad- 
verse alike  to  the  Government  in  its  absolute  and  despotic 
character,  and  the  people  governed.  There  is,  perhaps,  no 
more  certain  truth  than  that  which  is  conveyed  in  the  axiom 
that  laws  and  actions  must  have  a  certain  adaptation  to  the 
existing  character  of  the  people  to  be  governed ;  and  that  we 
must  judge  of  any  code  by  estimating  the  amount  of  good  or 
evil  that  has  been  found  to  result.  If  the  average,  for  the  time 
being,  of  good  will  bear  comparison  with  that  observable  in 
other  countries,  and  in  other  stages  of  civilization,  although  a 
different  code  or  fonii  of  government  and  institutions  may  ex- 
ist, our  right  to  condemn  the  latter  must,  to  say  the  least,  be 
very  questionable,  however  they  may  depart  from  our  own 
standard  of  ethics  and  good  government. 

Here  in  outward  form  we  have  feudalism,  without  its  chiv- 
alry, reproduced  —  a  Venetian  oligarchy  of  nobles,  reducing 
even  the  duplicated  sovereign  power  to  a  sliadowy  existence, 
in  which  the  feudal  lord  is  every  thing,  and  the  lower  and  la- 
boring classes  nothing.  Yet  what  do  we  see  ?  Peace,  plenty, 
apparent  content,  and  a  country  more  perfectly  and  cai'efully 
cultivated  and  kept,  with  more  ornamental  timber  every  where 
than  can  be  matched  even  in  England.  The  laws,  so  far  as  we 
know,  are  somewhat  Draconian  in  their  severity,  and  adminis- 
tered unflinchingly  by  the  very  simplest  and  most  direct  proc- 
esses, without  the  aid  of  lawyers.  As  the  traveler  passes  along 
the  road,  at  the  entrance  of  a  bourg  or  hamlet  his  eye  will  often 
be  attracted  by  a  long  board,  roofed  over  to  protect  it  from  the 
weather,  but  open  at  the  sides,  on  which  are  written  imperial 
decrees  it  behooves  all  the  Tycoon's  subjects  to  know  and  obey. 
They  have  at  least  the  merit  of  being  few  and  short,  and  most 
of  them  seem  half  effaced  by  time,  as  already  superfluous ! 
Perhaps,  after  all,  the  Draconian  penal  code  and  absence  of 
legal  technicalities  may  be  not  only  a  natural  product  of  less 
advanced  stages  of  civilization,  and  a  needful  restraint  on  indi- 
vidual freedom  of  action,  but  also  it  may  be  that,  as  I  have  sug- 
gested, a  more  seemingly  equitable  and  humane,  as  well  as  a 
more  elaborately  constituted  code,  could  not  be  carried  out  for 
want  of  fit  administrative  machinery.  The  institutions  may  be 
as  good  as  the  average  character  of  the  people  and  their  civil- 
ization will  permit,  and  if  so,  the  best  and  fittest  for  the  existing 
time,  however  remote  from  an  absolutely  just  penal  system, 
or  an  abstractedly  perfect  theory  of  government.    Less  strin- 


384  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XXI. 

geut  institutions  might  only  entail  social  confusion,  and  tho 
worse  evils  inseparable  from  it.  Anarchy  brings  far  more  suf- 
fering on  the  masses,  and,  it  may  be,  more  demoralization,  than 
a  despotism  ^^«ec?  to  avert  this,  and  therefore,  in  that  sense  at 
least,  justified  by  the  circumstances.  It  may  be  the  least  wrong 
in  view  of  the  total  of  suffering,  and  if  so,  can  not  be  far  from 
being  relatively  right  for  the  time  and  the  people,  and  worthy 
of  approbation  rather  than  sweeping  condemnation.  At  all 
events,  be  the  connection  of  cause  and  effect  what  it  may,  tak- 
ing the  despotic  and  oligarchic  constitution  of  these  realms, 
with  its  rude  and  sharp  administration  of  justice,  which  admits 
neither  public  pleading,  appeal,  nor  extenuations,  but  takes  a 
man's  head  off  as  certainly  for  a  theft  as  a  murder ;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  material  prosperity  of  a  population,  estimated 
at  thirty  millions,  which  has  made  a  garden  of  Eden  of  this 
volcanic  soil,  and  has  grown  in  numbers  and  in  wealth  by  un- 
aided native  industry,  shut  out  from  all  intercourse  with  the 
rest  of  the  world,  it  is  impossible  to  pass  any  sweeping  con- 
demnation either  on  them  or  the  institutions  under  which  they 
live,  and  where  such  results  are  possible.  Witliout  wishing  to 
make  any  apology  for  despotism,  or  the  Japanese  Government 
either,  I  give  the  reflections  which  naturally  suggest  them- 
selves to  the  European  traveler, 

I  remained  in  this  isolated  region — wilderness  within  a  wil- 
derness (for  such  all  Japan  is  to  the  foreigner  yet),  nearly 
three  weeks.  But  even  our  Yaconins  became  weary  of  the 
contracted  circle  of  our  gyrations  ;  and,  to  say  the  truth,  there 
was  no  one  of  the  party,  I  believe,  who  did  not  look  forward 
with  pleasure  to  the  day  of  departure.  The  villagers  soon 
got  accustomed  to  us,  and  were  as  quiet  and  inofiensive  a  pop- 
ulation as  heart  could  desire ;  but  we  had  exhausted  all  the 
shops,  and  all  the  amusement  that  could  be  extracted  out  of 
the  operation  of  bai'gaining  with  their  puzzle-headed  owners. 
The  men  especially,  all  over  Japan,  seem  to  be  wretched  ac- 
countants, far  inferior  in  this  to  the  Chinese,  who  are  a  match 
for  the  best  European  '  experts.'  The  women,  strange  to  say, 
are  much  better  than  their  lords  at  figures ;  and  when  it  came 
to  a  question  of  addition  or  multiplication,  we  always  had  re- 
course to  the  more  ready  wit  of  the  wife. 

I  must  not  take  leave  of  Atarai  without  a  few  words  on  its 
principal  manufacture — Paper ;  nor  could  I  have  had  a  better 
opportunity  of  observing  all  the  processes,  since  our  landlord 
had  an  establishment  attached  to  the  house  where  paper  was 
made;  and,  wonderful  to  relate,  he  was  quite  ready  and  will- 
ing to  give  me  such  information  as  was  in  his  power. 


Chap.  XX  I]  RAGS  A  BAD  SPECULATION.  385 

Nearly  all  paper  in  Japan  is  made  from  the  bark  of  trees, 
and  in  some  qualities  it  is  superior  to  any  in  Europe,  moi'e  es- 
pecially as  regards  toughness.  Even  the  finer  kinds  can  only 
be  torn  with  difiiculty,  and  the  stronger  qualities  defy  every 
effort.  Indeed,  it  supplies  the  place  of  linen  and  cambric,  be- 
ing used  for  handkerchiefs  and  other  domestic  purposes  where 
we  should  use  cloth  or  rags.  They  are  not  unacquainted  with 
the  process  of  manufacturing  paper  from  cotton  rags — indeed, 
I  believe  they  would  make  paper  out  of  old  shoes — but  the  for- 
mer are  little  used,  because  the  bark  is  prefen'ed.  Some  of  the 
more  enterprising  pioneers  of  foreign  trade  endeavored  to  turn 
this  fact  to  account,  and  began  to  buy  up  all  the  old  rags, 
which,  as  may  be  supposed,  were  cheap  enough  in  a  country 
where  cotton  is  universally  worn,  and  the  rags  were  regarded 
as  rubbish.  The  Japanese,  however,  were  not  long  in  discov- 
ering that,  however  useless  and  worthless  for  home  consump- 
tion, they  had  a  value  for  the  foreign  market,  and  the  profits 
on  the  later  shipments  were  very  speedily  diminished  from  the 
rise  in  price. 

Some  twenty  or  thirty  thousand  piculs  (133  lbs.  each)  had 
been  shipped  to  the  end  of  1861.  But  the  rags  were  mostly 
colored  and  nearly  all  rotten ;  and,  although  the  British  ship- 
pers, who  chiefly  entered  into  this  business,  showed  no  little 
ingenuity  and  energy,  both  in  finding  means  to  dischai-ge  the 
color  (always  vegetable),  and  in  the  invention  of  a  press  to 
screw  the  contents  of  each  bale  into  smaller  compass,  I  believe 
the  calculations  made  were  not  borne  out  by  the  results.  It 
was  supposed  tliat  these  rags  could  be  laid  down  in  England 
at  about  £12  per  ton,  and  would  fetch  £18,  or  something  like 
60  per  cent,  profit,  rags  in  England  varying  in  value  from 
£10  to  £35  per  ton.  As  the  Japanese  make  little  or  no  use 
of  their  rags,  and  are  almost  exclusively  clothed  in  cotton,  this, 
it  was  hoped,  might  become  an  article  of  export  of  some  little 
importance,  though  not  very  large  in  money  value.  I  know  it 
was  expected  that  25,000  piculs  could  be  sent  away  from  Yo- 
kohama alone,  at  about  $1  50  the  picul.  The  out-tnni  of  the 
first  venture  was  such,  however,  as  to  discourage  all  enterprise 
in  this  direction,  the  coloring  matter,  and  means  taken  for  its 
discharge,  being  alleged  as  the  chief  cause  of  failure. 

As  to  the  kind  of  bark  used,  and  the  processes  by  which  it 
is  converted  into  such  an  infinite  variety  of  paper — sixty-seven 
different  kinds,  I  have  elsewhere  mentioned,  were  sent  to  the 
Exhibition,  exclusive  of  a  large  number  of  imitation  leathers, 
all  made  from  the  same  materials — I  find  Kcempfer  has  given  a 
very  detailed  description,  gathered  from  native  sources,  and 

R 


3S6  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XXI. 

describes  the  shrubs  botanically,  with  carefully  executed  plates. 
Mr.  J.  Veitch  also  supplied  me  with  some  botanical  notes  in 
reference  to  the  paper ;  but,  on  comparing  the  two,  there  seems 
some  difference  of  opinion  or  information.  Koempfer  snys  the 
paper  in  Japan  is  made  of  the  Morus  papyriftra  sativa,  or  true 
'  paper-tree'  (a  kind  of  mulberry),  with  the  addition  of  a  slimy 
infusion  of  rice  and  also  of  the  Oreni  root ;  and  sometimes,  as 
a  substitute  for  the  latter,  they  make  use  of  a  creeping  shrub 
called  '■Sane  Kadsura,  the  leaves  whereof  yield  a  mucilage  in 
great  plenty,'  as  also  of  the  Papyrus  legitima ;  and  he  gives 
carefully  engraved  plates  of  both,  with  a  minute  description  of 
the  plants. 

Mr.  Veitch  describes  the  paper-tree  of  Japan  as  the  Motus^ 
or  Broussonetia  papyrifera^  and  also  tells  me  he  has  found  two 
other  plants  grown  in  the  district  of  Yoddo  for  paper-making, 
namely,  a  Buddled  species  and  the  Hihisciis.  It  seems  proba- 
ble there  are  many  more  trees  and  shrubs,  the  bark  of  which 
would  answer  the  same  purpose,  perhaps,  equally  well.  With 
us  at  home,  it  is,  no  doubt,  a  question  of  cost  in  reducing  the 
raw  material  to  the  pulpy  state  proper  for  paper -making. 
The  bamboo,  in  China,  almost  exclusively  supplies  the  material 
for  all  Chinese  paper,  known  so  long  among  artists  and  cop- 
per-plate printers  as  'Indian  paper,'  the  first  importations  hav- 
ing been  made  in  the  East  India  Company's  ships.  This  is 
excellent  in  its  kind,  and  much  prized  for  artistic  purposes — 
proof  impressions,  mounting  of  drawings,  etc.,  but  it  is  wholly 
wanting  in  the  toughness  or  tenacity  of  the  Japanese.  As  to 
the  processes  of  manufacture,  these,  like  almost  every  thing 
else  in  Japan,  are  simple  in  the  extreme,  and,  if  expensive,  they 
could  only  be  so  in  the  article  of  labor.  A  more  elaborate  de- 
scription, and,  as  far  as  I  can  judge,  a  very  accurate  one,  may 
be  read  in  Koempfer,  and  a  third  will  also  be  found  in  Mr. 
Veitch's  botanical  notes,  which  he  has  kindly  peimitted  me  to 
add  in  the  Appendix.  But  the  following  I  gleaned  myself  on 
the  spot.  It  appeared  three  several  trees  were  laid  under  con- 
tribution to  furnish  the  materials,  severally  called  in  Japanese 
Ganpi,  Mitsoo-ynata^  and  Tamo.  The  first  is  the  staple  or 
foundation,  a  shrub  growing  some  eight  feet  high  a  few  miles 
from  Atarni.  The  bark  of  this  is  stripped  off,  dried,  and  then, 
when  the  season  arrives  (winter  is  best),  it  is  steeped  in  water 
until  the  outer  green  layer  can  be  scraped  off,  and  then  the 
bark  thus  stripped  is  boiled  in  ley  until  it  is  softened  like  a 
vegetable  for  eating,  after  which  it  is  beaten  with  two  clubs 
until  it  is  reduced  to  a  state  of  pulp,  or  at  least  ready  to  be- 
come pulp  with  a  farther  immersion.     A  second  bark  is  then 


Chap.  XXI.]  PAPER-MAKING.— A  FOSSIL.  387 

added,  apparently  of  a  larger  tree,  stripped  also  of  the  outei 
husk,  to  give  toughness — the  Tamo  ;  and  the  third,  the  Mit 
800-mata,  to  make  it  glutinous,  or  to  size  it.  When  all  thes« 
ingredients  are  brought  into  a  state  of  fine  liquid  pulp,  and 
well  mixed,  it  is  made  into  sheets  of  paper  by  being  spread,  in 
a  perfectly  liquid  shape,  over  frames  of  matting  very  like  our 
wire  frames,  and  answering  precisely  the  same  purpose.  They 
make  it  at  Atarai  of  five  colors ;  the  landlord  brought  me  a 
large  bundle  of  each  as  a  specimen,  which  I  sent  to  the  Exhi- 
bition. It  is  sold  at  six  cash  a  sheet,  or  say  four  for  a  far- 
thing, each  sheet  about  the  size  of  large  quarto  letter-paper. 
I  fancy  Japan  is  rich  in  fibrous  textures  derived  from  the  veg- 
etable kingdom,  all  turned  to  the  same  use ;  but  my  informant 
seemed  to  know  only  his  own  branch  of  the  business,  or  else 
Matabe's  powers  of  interpretation  were  exhausted. 

Having  tried  in  vain  while  here  to  obtain  any  reliable  infor- 
mation about  the  tenure  of  the  houses  and  land,  I  was  com- 
pelled to  draw  my  own  conclusions.  The  land  seemed,  for  the 
most  part,  to  be  in  very  small  allotments,  and  to  furnish  only 
one  of  the  occupations  and  means  of  subsistence  of  each  house- 
hold— the  fisherman's  net,  the  turner's  lathe,  and  a  little  shop- 
keeping,  all  alternating  with  the  plowman's  and  farmer's  toil. 
A  more  primitive  or  easily-satisfied  population  I  never  lived 
among ;  and  I  doubt  whether  twenty  of  the  whole  number 
ever  leave  their  sea-girt  home,  Avith  its  mountain  barriers,  from 
the  beginning  to  the  end  of  their  lives.  But  the  absence  of  all 
active  curiosity,  or  desire  for  change,  is  not  peculiar  to  them. 
I  once  sat  by  the  chimney  of  a  peasant's  hut,  in  the  plains  of 
Castilia  la  veija  (Old  Castile),  not  twenty  miles  from  the  great 
cathedral  town  of  Burgos,  with  all  its  glories  of  Gothic  archi- 
tecture, and,  on  asking  him  what  he  thoufjht  of  it,  was  amused 
to  hear  he  had  never  been  there,  though  his  hair  was  as  white 
as  the  snow  that  covered  those  bleak  plains.  Before  railroads 
came  into  play,  many  similar  cases  might,  no  doubt,  have  been 
found  in  England  also.  For  the  most  part,  the  desire  for 
change  of  scene  comes  only  with  opportunity  and  habit.  Those 
who  have  wandered  once  away  from  home  are  seldom  content 
to  remain  there,  without  change,  for  the  rest  of  their  lives.  The 
desire  for  travel,  like  so  many  other  of  our  appetites  (if  not 
all),  grows  by  what  it  feeds  upon ;  and  the  natural  food  once 
obtained,  more  is  inevitably  desired,  though  many  live  a  life 
through  without  experiencing  the  want. 

Thus  moralizing  as  I  wandered  day  by  day  through  the  val- 
ley and  its  hamlets,  peopled  with  successive  generations  of  men 
and  women,  and  a  plentiful  pi'ogeny  of  children,  leaving  no 


388 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  XXI. 


doubt  of  the  perpetuation  of  the  species,  all  born  with  immor- 
tal souls — in  outward  lineament,  too,  how  like — and  yet,  in  all 
that  constitutes  the  difference  between  man  and  man,  how 
strangely  and  utterly  dissimilar  to  many  of  their  kind  in  Eu- 
rope !  I  used  to  find  myself  speculating  on  the  causes  of  such 
wide  divergence,  and  the  consequences.  Compare  the  exist- 
ence which  one  of  these  villagers  leads — which  all  lead  from 
age  to  age — with  the  life  just  closed  in  a  man  like  Cavour, 
Are  they  all  born  with  the  same  feelings,  wants,  and  capaci- 
ties? There  was  something  of  a  sepulcliral  or  catacomb  char- 
acter about  the  very  streets,  and  in  the  features  of  houses,  tem- 
ples, and  tombstones,  all  promiscuously  mingled — mementoes 


ATAMI    AND    ITS    MONUMENTS. 

of  a  past  Avhich  had  no  future — a  Pompeii,  without  its  interest 
or  its  history.  Yet  they  lead,  to  all  appearance,  a  happy  life 
enough,  after  a  fashion  of  their  own,  these  same  villagers,  as 
the  mole  and  the  oyster  in  their  respective  elements  may  be 
happy.  There  can  not  be  much  ebb  and  flow  in  their  lives, 
and  no  swift  current  ever  bears  them  onward  to  new  shores  or 
experiences.  All  who  are  ha]ipy  are  not  equally  happj',  as 
Johnson  observed.     The  peasant  and  the  king,  the  fisherman 


CHAt.  XXI.] 


A  MORAL  PROBLEM. 


d8d 


and  the  philosopher,  may  be  equally  satisfied  with  their  lot, 
but  not  equally  happy,  if  happiness  be  truly  defined  as  con- 
sisting in  the  multiplicity  of  agreeable  impressions,  or  the  vivid- 
ness and  intensity  of  a  conscious  sense  of  being  and  enjoyment. 
The  peasant  and  the  philosopher  have  not  equal  capacities  for 
happiness  in  this  sense.  '  A  small  drinking  glass  and  a  large 
one  may  be  equally  full,  but  a  large  one  holds  more  than  the 
small ;'  and  though  Channing  may  be  perfectly  right  in  saying 
no  man,  be  he  emperor  or  peasant,  can  have  more  enjoyment 
than  will  lie  between  the  crown  of  his  head  and  the  sole  of  his 
foot,  the  difference  in  amount  and  kind^  in  different  organiza- 
tions and  degrees  of  development,  must  be  almost  infinite. 

But  it  is  not  the  inequality  of  enjoyment  (every  where  so 
constant,  even  in  the  highest  civilization)  which  strikes  an  ob- 


UTB  AT   ATAJil — (a    PEASANT   AND   HIS   WIFE   RETCBNCfO   FROM    LABOR)^ 


390  THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN.  [Chap.  XXI. 

server  so  much,  as  the  certain  and  continuous  inequality  of  de- 
velopment. This  is  a  transitory  life  and  a  probationary  one, 
the  preparation  and  preface  only  to  another.  That  much  should 
be  imperfect  or  fragmentary  we  can  readily  conceive ;  but 
what  of  the  inequality  that  dwarfs  development  and  all  per- 
fecting process,  which  makes  a  race  of  cretins  by  the  side  of  a 
nation  of  philosophers,  statesmen,  poets,  artists,  and,  as  they 
wei"e  bom,  so  leaves  them  to  die?  and  so,  from  generation 
to  generation,  to  perpetuate  their  race,  and  reappear  to  run 
the  same  sad,  hopeless,  seemingly  aimless  destiny !  Idolaters, 
Pagans — with  capacities  undeveloped,  germs  left  dormant,  and 
a  dead  level  of  existence  just  one  degree  above  the  beasts  that 
perish — no  hope,  no  faith  in  a  future  and  a  better  life !  How 
are  such  inequalities  as  these,  inexorably  reproduced  in  secvlos 
seculorum,  fvom  the  earliest  days  of  the  human  race,  to  be  blend- 
ed into  any  system  of  divine  government  which  we  can  con- 
ceive ? 

It  was  time  I  left  Atami  when  such  problems  as  these  sug- 
gested themselves  for  solution.  But  before  I  took  my  depart- 
ure I  found  that  man's  ingenuity  in  torturing  himself  for  some 
fancied  good  or  evil  was  not  without  its  example  among  my 
friends  here,  however  primitive  their  habits  and  low  their  esti- 
mate of  the  things  really  needful  to  life  and  happiness,  for  I 
found  a  manufactory  of  Mbxas  in  full  play.  Now  the  Moxa  is 
a  pleasant  and  ingenious  device  for  burning  a  hole  in  a  man's 
skin,  not  wholly  unknown  to  the  Faculty  in  Europe,  but  the 
honor  of  invention  and  love  for  its  application  lie,  I  believe,  ex- 
clusively with  Japan.  With  us  the  art,  moreover,  is  entirely 
monopolized  by  physicians  and  surgeons,  whereas  every  Jap- 
anese has  it  in  his  own  hands  as  a  household  remedy.  For  the 
uninitiated  I  may  say  that  the  cauterizing  tinder  is  made  from 
the  pith  of  a  tree  of  which  I  procured  a  branch.  Koempfer  de- 
scribes it  as  the  common  mugwort,  Artemisia  vulgaris  latifo- 
lia,  but  he  says  the  leaves  only  are  used ;  I  was  told  the  pith 
and  the  bark,  dried,  rubbed  to  powder,  and  then  put  up  in  neat 
little  squares  attached  to  paper.  When  wanted  for  use,  one 
of  these  is  taken  out  and  placed  on  a  little  circular  layer  of 
powdered  charcoal,  which  is  ignited.  The  Japanese  seem 
strangely  addicted  to  its  use — this  and  the  acupuncture,  an- 
other agreeable  invention,  common,  I  believe,  to  Japan  and  to 
China,  and  used  '  to  discuss  and  expel  all  manner  of  winds  and 
vapors' — the  cause  of  nearly  all  distempers,  according  to  the 
learned,  from  Hippocrates  to  the  last  Japanese  sage.  At  their 
own  free  choice,  most  of  the  natives  undergo  the  operation  at 
least  once  every  spring,  as  a  preventive  measure ;  and  it  is 


Chap.  XXI.]  TAXES.— JAPANESE  FUTURE.  391 

rare  to  see  a  man  stripped  without  finding  a  long  row  of 
scars  burned  in  on  each  side  the  spine  at  an  inch  or  two  apart. 
It  seems  to  be  considered  a  universal  specific;  even  the  ac- 
coucheur calls  in  its  aid,  and  is  directed  to  burn  '  tln-ee  cones 
on  the  little  toe  of  the  right  foot  to  facilitate  delivery !' 

One  day  I  saw  an  infant  held  across  its  mother's  knee  while 
another  woman,  quite  remorselessly,  was  burning  two  or  three 
of  these  pleasant  pastils  about  the  umbilical  region,  to  the  great 
discomfiture  of  the  unhappy  little  patient,  as  may  well  be  imag- 
ined, who  protested  vehemently  with  throat  and  legs,  but  all 
in  vain,  against  the  practice. 

Although  occasionally  resorted  to  by  our  surgeons,  and  with 
good  efiect,  it  is  said,  in  some  obscure  neuralgic  and  paralytic 
cases,  it  has  never  been  in  great  vogue  with  us.  Koempfer  tells 
a  story  of  the  Japanese  apro2)08  to  this  practice  too  good  to  be 
lost.  The  first  two  or  three  cones  are  applied  successively  in 
order  to  burn  through  the  skin,  and  these  are  called  kawakiri ; 
new  taxes  laid  on  them  by  their  Princes  or  Government  are 
called  '•kawakiri'  also,  because '  they  are  very  hard  to  be  borne 
at  first,  but  become  much  easier  in  time.'  If  this  be  true  of 
taxes  in  the  experience  of  the  Japanese,  it  should  afford  great 
encouragement  to  our  future  Chancellors  of  the  Exchequer  to 
lay  on  boldly  the  shilling  income-tax,  so  constantly  referred  to 
as  a  pleasant  round  sum,  though  many  of  the  lieges  would,  no 
doubt,  regard  it  as  a  kawakiri^  a  skin-cutter,  and  '  hard  to  be 
borne  at  first ;'  but  then,  if  it  should  become  much  easier  in 
time,  that  might  bring  consolation ! 

Whatever  may  be  the  experience  of  the  Japanese  population 
in  the  way  of  taxation,  I  adhere  to  the  idea  that  it  is  not  of  a  very 
onerous  or  grinding  character  upon  the  whole ;  and  at  the  close 
of  this,  my  first  expedition  into  the  interior,  recalling  all  the 
evidences  that  met  ray  eye  of  a  happy,  contented-looking  peas- 
antry, I  was  not  disposed  to  think  Kampfer  so  far  wrong  when 
he  concluded  his  history  of  Japan,  nearly  two  centuries  ago,  by 
declaring  that '  their  country  was  never  in  a  happier  condition 
than  it  now  is,  governed  by  an  arbitrary  monarch,  shut  up  and 
kept  from  all  commerce  and  communication  with  foreign  na- 
tions.' Whether,  a  century  hence,  the  descendants  of  this  gen- 
eration, which  has  seen  the  inauguration  of  renewed  relations, 
commercial  and  political,  may  be  able  to  point  to  a  higher  and 
better  civilization,  with  an  equal  development  of  material  pros- 
perity and  national  content,  as  is  every  where  apparent  now, 
and  rejoice  in  the  result  as  a  consequence  of  foreign  relations, 
is  another  problem  for  time  to  solve.  But  that  such  progress 
will  not  be  achieved  without  fundamental  changes,  and  great 


392 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  XXL 


disturbance  to  all  existing  institutions  and  relations  of  the  peo- 
ple to  their  rulers,  seems  very  certain.  Happy  will  it  be  if  a 
frequent  resort  to  preventive  and  curative  processes  be  not  re- 
quired, compared  to  which  the  skin-cutting  of  the  hawakiri  will 
be  mild  indeed.  We  need  not,  at  all  events,  be  surprised  if  the 
rulers  and  the  ruled  should  alike  show  great  repugnance  at  first 
to  the  initiative  steps,  and  look  upon  all  foreign  nations  much 
as  patients  regard  their  doctors,  with  an  instinctive  anticipation 
of  something  both  dangerous  and  disagreeable  necessarily  fol- 
lowing their  introduction  into  the  house — some  medicines  bit- 
ter to  the  taste  and  hard  to  swallow,  however  benevolent  the 
practitioners,  if  not  scarifications  and  cauteries  painful  in  antic- 
ipation, and  still  worse  in  experience,  however  determined  or 
skillful  the  operator. 

My  last  walk  through  Atarai  ended  in  my  sketching  a  very 
primitive  but  no  less  characteristic  aqueduct  in  one  of  the 


THE    VILLAGE    AQUEDUCT. 


streets,  constructed  of  bamboo,  to  spare  the  labor  of  the  good 
wives  in  fetching  water.  Here  they  came,  each  with  their  little 
tub,  to  wash  the  clothes,  and,  never  being  at  a  loss  for  hot  wa- 
ter (out  of  the  great  caldron  under  their  feet),  they  spared 


Chap.  XXI.] 


FISHERMEN.— SOIL. 


ncu? 


both  labor  and  soap,  with  the  farther  advantage  of  breathing 
the  fresh  air  and  enjoying  a  gossip  with  their  neighbors.  Oft- 
en, as  I  returned  toward  the  sea-beach,  I  was  met  by  groups 
of  fishermen,  with  their  wives  and  children — the  wife  suckling 
her  baby  and  carrying  the  fish  ;  the  father  loaded  only  with 
some  light  fishing-tackle,  while  his  elder  child  would  follow  in 
the  wake,  with  a  victimized  tortoise  for  his  playfellow. 


RETUBNIMO    FROM    SEA-FISHING. 

Of  the  geographical  characters  I  can  give  little  information. 
The  soil  under  cultivation  in  all  the  valleys  seems  to  be  similar 
to  that  observable  in  tracts  of  Central  India  called  'black  or 
cotton  soil' — a  rich  earth,  the  detritus  of  igneous  rocks  prob- 
ably, farther  fertilized  during  a  long  succession  of  centuries  by 
the  liquid  manure  from  towns.  Riding  along  the  road,  it  may 
be  seen  several  feet  in  depth,  richer-looking  than  any  garden 
mould,  and  without  a  stone.  Indeed,  in  all  the  country  adja- 
cent to  the  capital,  more  varied  in  form  and  character,  and  rich 

112 


394 


I'HREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


tCHAP.  XXI. 


in  picturesque  features,  than  the  vicinity  of  any  capital  I  have 
ever  seen  can  boast  of;  it  is  a  saying  that '  stones  and  gold  are 
equally  scarce.'  Yet,  w^ith  all  this  apparent  richness  and  care- 
ful culture,  there  is  a  sad  deliciency  of  flavor  and  delicacy  in 
every  thing  it  produces  except  rice,  which  is  excellent — '  the 
richest  and  fattest  in  the  world,'  according  to  Koempfer. 

At  last,  the  resources  of  the  place  and  our  own  patience  being 
alike  exhausted,  early  one  morning,  toward  the  end  of  Septem- 
ber, we  took  our  departure,  and  started  for  Odawara,  on  our 
way  back  to  Yeddo.  Our  road  lay  along  the  coast,  fair  and 
pleasant  to  the  eye,  but  hard  to  travel  for  man  and  horse.  The 
same  careful  culture  and  abundance  of  timber  were  every  where 
observable.  The  following  day  brought  us  to  Foodisawa,  along 
five  leagues  of  a  level  and  sanded  avenue,  still  coasting  the  sea^ 
shore.  We  were  ferried  across  two  rivers,  and  passed  a  dead 
man  on  the  road,  evidently  a  beggar ;  so  destitution  does  exist, 
however  rare,  and  men  die  on  the  high  roads — at  least  this  one 
instance  seemed  to  show  such  things  were,  even  in  Japan, 
though  somebody  has  said  or  written  there  were  no  beggars  in 
Japan.  Beggars  there  certainly  are,  and  in  and  about  the  capi- 
tal in  considerable  numbers ;  but  they  are  very  far  from  being 
either  so  numerous,  or  so  frequently  to  be  seen  at  the  point  of 
starvation  as  in  the  neighboring  country  of  China. 

The  third  day  a  continuance  of  the  same  beautiful  road  led 
us  to  Totsooka,  then  a  sharp  ride  of  five  leagues  before  break- 
fast into  Kanagawa,  and  the  journey  was  over. 


A   JAPANESE   TRAVELING, 


CHAP,  XXII.]  THE  HIGH  ROAD.  395 


CHAPTER  XXn. 

The  High  Road  to  the  Capital,  and  those  who  Travel  on  it. 

There  is  an  arrangement  in  this  country,  already  alluded  to, 
by  which  certain  high  roads,  the  great  arteries  of  the  empire, 
leading  to  and  from  Miaco  and  Yeddo,  are  made  imperial 
property.  These  may  both  be  considered  capitals,  since  the 
Mikado,  the  titular  Emperoi*,  resides  at  the  one,  and  the  Ty- 
coon, the  virtual  Sovereign,  at  the  other.  The  road  between 
these,  and  from  them  to  the  other  Imperial  cities  on  the  coast, 
although  passing  through  the  domains  of  the  several  Daimios, 
are  in  no  sense  considered  as  a  part  of  their  territories,  or  un- 
der their  jurisdiction.  Avery  needful  reservation  obviously, 
where  these  feudal  Princes  exercise  within  their  own  territo- 
ries a  sovereign  sway,  as  otherwise  they  could  stop  all  traffic 
and  communication  throughout  the  empire.  Or,  what  would 
be  just  as  prejudicial,  and  to  Western  Powers  peculiarly  ad- 
verse, levy  a  tax  in  transitu  upon  produce,  as  did  our  barons 
of  yore  in  the  good  old  times,  and  so  arrest  all  development  of 
trade. 

Along  this  Tocado,  or  Imperial  road,  lies  the  way  to  Yeddo 
from  the  consular  port  of  Kanagawa;  and,  although  with  short 
intervals  the  road  on  both  sides  of  the  whole  distance  is  lined 
with  houses  and  shops  only  one  or  two  deep,  and  now  and 
then  clustering  into  a  little  township,  much  as  from  Hounslow 
to  London,  yet  Kanagawa  proper  ends  about  a  mile  and  a  half 
from  where  it  begins,  and  each  succeeding  hamlet  has  its  own 
name.  Kanagawa,  before  it  was  made  a  consular  port,  was  a 
place  of  some  importance,  as  a  resting-station  for  travelers,  and 
the  Daimios  more  especially  pi'oceeding  to  and  from  the  capi- 
tal with  a  large  following  of  retainers,  being  just  a  day's  jour- 
ney at  the  usual  rate  of  traveling,  or  seventeen  miles.  Ac- 
cordingly, cveiy  second  house  in  Kanagawa  is  either  a  tea- 
house, or  an  establishment  for  the  letting  of  horses,  cangos, 
norimons,  and  bearers  to  carry  the  two  latter  vehicles. 

The  whole  road  is  a  scene  of  constant  traffic.  Pack-horses 
and  porters  of  luggage — travelers  of  the  lower  classes  are  here, 
in  cangos  with  two  bearers  going  at  a  swinging  trot  whenever 
they  are  entering  a  place — travelers  of  a  higher  order,  male  or 
female,  in  norimons,  carried  by  four  bearers,  and  going  much 
more  deliberately,  as  becomes  the  dignity  of  superior  rank. 


396 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  XXII. 


This  is  not  a  country  in  which  men  of  this  generation  may  ever 
hope  for  the  luxury  of  express  trains,  nor  is  time,  apparently, 
estimated  as  a  valuable  commodity ;  hence,  every  thing  to  be 
done,  whether  it  be  a  journey,  a  bargain,  or  the  transaction  of 
any  other  business,  is  apt  to  be  intolerably  tedious. 

From  one  of  these  hostelries  our  horses  have  to  be  hired. 
The  bargain  is  made  at  a  most  extortionate  rate,  and  we  are 
to  pay  ten  itziboos,  or  more  than  three  dollars,  for  a  sorry 
brute,  the  cost  price  of  which  to  a  Japanese  is  not  more  than 
ten  or  twenty  dollars  at  the  highest ;  that  is,  a  day's  use  of  an 
animal  is,  by  this  kind  of  tarift'  (adjusted  by  foreigners),  equal 
to  a  seven  days'  purchase.  The  true  price  is  from  Is.  Qd.  to 
35.  per  diem ;  but  such  is  the  unconscionable  extortion  to  which 
strangers  are  exposed.  Travelers,  when  mounted,  are  accom- 
panied by  a  man  for  each  horse  to  bring  it  back,  and  seated  on 
a  high-peaked  saddle  with  a  sort  of  Turkish  stirrup,  in  which 
the  whole  foot  rests,  the  knees  being  brought  to  a  right  angle 
with  the  body.  Here  is  a  faithf'U  picture  of  one  of  the  hum- 
bler classes  of  travelers  mounted  on  a  pack-saddle,  the  crest  or 
monogram  of  the  owner  being  stamped  on  the  broad  belly- 


HOW    THE    UNPRrriLEGED   TRAVEL   ON   THE   HIGH    ROAD. 

band  of  cloth  to  protect  the  horse  from  the  gadflies.  Thus 
equipped,  if  neither  provided  with  horse  nor  saddle  of  your 
own,  you  set  oif,  trusting  in  Providence  to  arrive  before  dark, 
with  some  skin  left  on  your  bones.  The  road,  for  the  most 
part,  is  good — broad  and  level — but  here  and  there  macadam- 


Chap.  XXII.]  KANAGAWA  TO  YEDDO. -MUSICIANS.  307 


rriNEBANT  MUSICIANS. 


izing  is  wofully  wanted,  one  lialf  the  road  rising  in  perilous  ab- 
ruptness one  or  two  feet  higher  than  the  lower  edge.  And  in 
wet  weather,  the  road  which  forms  the  main  street  through 
the  town  of  Kanagawa  itself  becomes  a  perfect  quagmire. 
What  the  great  Daimios  do  on  such  occasions  I  can  not  say. 
It  is  true,  in  fine  weather,  when  the  whole  road  is  tolerably 
clean,  portions  may  be  seen  nicely  swept  and  sanded  for  their 
high  mightinesses  to  pass  smoothly  along;  but  ihe  slough  of 
despond  to  which  all  Kanagawa  is  rediu-cd  f(U'  days  together 
is  far  past  sweeping  or  sanding  either !  And  neither  Ka»mp- 
fer  nor  Thunbcrg,  who  tell  us  so  much  of  the  delectable  state 
of  the  Japanese  roads,  have  thrown  any  light  on  this  part  of 
the  problem,  or  even  hinted  at  its  existence.  Injustice  be  it 
said,  this  state  of  road  is  not  common  in  Japan  ;  how  it  comes 
to  be  so,  more  especially  near  the  ca))ital  of  the  Tycoon,  and 
even  in  Yeddo  itself,  is  difficult  to  understand,  unless  upon  the 


398 


THREE  VEAkS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  XXII. 


principle  involved  in  the  proverbial  saying,  'The  nearer  the 
church,  the  farther  from  heaven.' 

Slowly  we  wend  our  way  among  horse  and  foot,  men  and 
women,  children  and  dogs.  The  traffic  seems  to  be  great,  and 
the  travelers  are  of  all  classes.  Through  the  streets  of  the 
town  it  requires  very  good  steering  amid  the  light  heels  of 
the  pack-horses,  the  blocking  up  of  the  passage  by  their  loads, 
the  gangs  of  coolies,  and  a  constant  stream  of  pedestrians  and 
wayfarers  of  every  denomination.  Now  it  is  a  band  of  stroll- 
ing musicians,  who  make  up  in  noise  and  discord,  as  some- 
times do  greater  professors,  what  they  want  in  music  and  mel- 
ody. 

Following  them  is  a  Yaconin,  plowing  his  way  through  the 
snow,  which,  by  a  rare  chance  has  fallen  somewhat  thickly 
during  the  morning.  He  is  protected  from  the  inclemency  of 
the  weather  by  a  cloak  of  split  reeds,  light,  warm,  and  nearly 
water-proof,  with  the  farther  advantage  of  being  cheap :  I 


TACONIN   ON   SEKVICE 


thought  it  well  worth  a  place  in  the  collection  at  the  Interna- 
tional Exhibition.  Here  come  two  coolies,  heavily  charged, 
vociferating  to  us  to  get  out  of  their  wny.     They  may  be  the 


Chap. XXII.]  A  DAIMIO  ON  THE  ROAD.— PEASANTS. 


399 


scullions  of  the  petty  officer  we  passed  a  few  minutes  ago,  aud 
who  deems  himself  vastly  superior  in  his  own  land  to  any  des- 
ecrating foreigner !  I  once  met  a  train  of  coolies  carrying  the 
heavy  baggage  of  some  courtier  from  Miaco,  who  took  up  the 
middle  of  the  road,  and  called  out  fiercely,  ^ShUa/ilriof  (Down 
on  your  knees !)  But  here  comes  a  train  of  the  Dairaio  him- 
self; let  us  ride  single  file,  and  leave  ample  room — do  what  we 
may,  in  fact,  to  pass  unchallenged  and  unmolested — if  possible! 
No  one  can  count  with  any  certainty  on  success.  First  are 
two  not  very  reputable-looking  runners,  whose  business  it  is  to 
clear  the  road  with  the  all-potent  word  which  commands  pros- 
tration— well,  we  can  not  prostrate  ourselves,  notwithstanding 
that  imperious  gest  and  truculent  look.  Now  come  some 
avant-couriers  of  a  higher  class,  and  behind  them  are  the  spear- 
men and  personal  officers  of  the  noble.  See  how  they  eye  us, 
and  say  if  you  think  they  are  safe  people  to  meet  where  they 
are  a  hundred  to  one,  and  are  assured  of  immunity  if  1  hey  fall 
upon  you  aud  murder  you  on  the  spot  ?  There,  thank  God 
and  be  grateful ;  they  have  neither  drawn  upon,  nor  even 
pushed  us  into  the  kennel,  as  they  evidently  felt  more  than 
half  inclined  to  do ;  pray  that  you  meet  no  more  to-day,  for 
you  may  be  less  fortunate  if  compelled  to  run  the  gauntlet  a 
second  time.  What!  you  think  this  unpleasant;  learn  that 
tins  is  the  tenure  on  which  foreigners  hold  all  their  rights  and 
privileges  under  treaty  in  Japan — the  chance  of  being  slain  iu 


ON  THE  ROAD  TO  TKDDO. 


BETURNINO  FROM  HARKKT. 


400 


THllEE  YEAKS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chai*.  XXII. 


the  high  road  for  no  other  offense  than  that  of  being  there, 
where  your  presence  is  not  desired.*  But  here  are  more 
peaceable  people,  from  whom  there  is  nothing  to  be  feared — 
the  Mwprivileged  classes,  unprivileged  to  kill  or  to  plunder — 
civilians,  merchants,  shopkeepers,  peasants — all  as  harmless  and 
AV ell  -  disposed  people  as  can  well  be  found  in  any  country  in 
the  world.  Here  is  one  peasant  going  home  with  his  market- 
ing, and  another  slowly  toiling  on  foot  to  the  capital.  After 
him  a  couple  of  fishermen  going  to  their  boats,  with  a  kilt,  or 
aomething  which  does  duty  for  one,  and  much  the  same  pat- 


FISHERMKN. 

tern,  only  economically  made  of  reeds.  Approaching  us  is 
one  of  those  remarkable  figures  said  to  be  often  disgraced  offi- 
cers, whose  face  is  quite  concealed  under  a  sort  of  broad,  deep- 

*  The  troth  of  these  observations  has  received  a  sad  illustration  in  the 
last  act  of  butchery  perpetrated  on  a  party  of  foreigners  riding  on  this  very 
liigh  road,  in  which  one  was  slain  and  two  were  grievously  wounded. 


Chav.  XXII.J  THE  PEACEABLE  CLASSES —BLINDNESS.        401 

rimmed  basket  for  a  hat,  evidently  too  common  a  sight  to  at- 
tract attention,  for  the  servant  is  passing  him  without  a  glance. 
Take  care !  we  have  a  blind  man  here.  '  How  well  he  is 
dressed !'  '  Certainly  ;  he  is  no  beggar,  but  well  to  do,  and 
therefore  dressed  like  a  gentleman,  but  blind  not  the  less,  and 
feeling  his  way,  while  the  peasant  girl  is  watching  to  see  he 


■"^  S^-^"-;  J.'^SP'" 


THE    BLIND  GENTLEMAN. 


comes  by  no  harm  from  our  horses.'  '  Is  blindness  very  cotn* 
mon?'  Yes — no!  It  must  always  be  common  where  there 
are  no  good  oculists.  Even  in  our  own  land,  thousands  lose 
their  sight  annually  by  bad  surgery,  or  the  want  of  good  treat- 
ment, such  as  those  only  who  nave  made  diseases  of  the  eye 
and  their  treatment  a  specialty  can  supply.  But  other  wis*',  1 
do  not  think  either  diseases  of  the  eye  or  blindness  unusually 


402 


THREE  YEARS  IN  JAPAN. 


[Chap.  XXII. 


frequent,  judging  by  what  one  can  see,  though  one  often  hears 
the  contrary  asserted.  It  miglit  be  expected,  I  admit  also ; 
for  not  only  their  knowledge  of  ophthalmic  surgery  must  be  on 

a  par  with  the  rest  of  their 
W^fl^  surgery,  and  very  bad ;  but 
J  V*  the  practice  which  prevails 
*9l**^  among  the  people  of  having 
their  eyelids  daily  turned 
inside  out  —  of  which  you 
may  see  an  example  as  you 
pass  that  barber's  shop  — 
and  then  rubbed  ovei',  tit- 
illated, and  polished  by  a 
smooth  copper  spatula, 
must,  I  should  think,  be 
eminently  conducive  to  dis- 
ease of  one  sort  or  other. 
Here  we  come  to  a  way- 
side hostelry,  and  see  that 
picture  of  zeal  in  a  female 
hostler,  who  is  hurrying, 
with  well-poised  body  and 
a  pail  of  water,  to  refresh 
the  horses'  mouths ;  while, 
on  the  other  side,  tea  is  of- 
fered in  cups  of  dainty  por- 
celain, thin  as  an  egg-shell. 
Now  we  are  leaving  the  great  congress  of  tea-houses  be- 
hind, the  inns  and  hotels  of  the  Japanese  offering  every  thing 
that  a  Japanese  traveler  can  desire — food,  drink,  shelter,  a  clean 
matted  floor,  a  look-out  on  a  little  garden,  or  here,  still  better, 
over  the  bay.  But,  even  if  we  may  have  all  this,  we  know  we 
can  not  have  a  table,  or  a  chair,  or  a  bed,  nor  a  mutton-cho]), 
nor  a  cup  of  milk,  nor  a  loaf  of  bread,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  all  these  things  are  to  the  Japanese  unknown,  or  ignored 
as  superfluities.  And  if  you  are  a  man  of  rank,  still  more  if  a 
foreigner,  be  prepared  with  a  long  purse  and  kobangs '  galore ;' 
for,  if  we  are  to  believe  the  Japanese  themsdves,  long  bills  fol- 
low the  shortest  sojourn  in  these  terrestrial  paradises.*  The 
shops,  as  we  pass,  do  not  present  a  very  inviting  appearance. 
For  the  most  part,  they  are  little  better  than  roadside  booths 

*  This  may  be  so  in  the  case  of  Daimios,  but  not  as  regards  travelers  gen- 
erally, as  I  had  means  of  ascertaining  in  my  long  journeys.  The  charges 
are  very  moderate,  and  to  all  the  Tycoon's  officers  and  employes  one  third 
less  than  to  others,  by  law  established. 


A   FEMALE    HOSTLER. 


Chap.  XXII.]        SHOPS.— CU08SING  THE  LOGO. 


403 


or  stalls,  offering  for  sale  children's  toys,  having  a  raarvelous 
family  likeness  with  those  of  Europe — windmills,  stufted  ani- 
mals on  wheels,  tops,  battledores  and  shuttlecocks.  Here  are 
others  with  cooked  eatables ;  beyond,  a  shop  with  false  toupees 
or  wigs,  umbrellas  and  hats,  baskets,  rain -cloaks  and  horse- 
shoes of  straw,  form  the  staple  articles,  all  under  one  roof,  the 
material  being  the  same  for  most  of  them.  Thus  it  happens 
that  a  Japanese  equipped  for  a  journey  looks  as  if  he  had  taken 
the  cover  of  a  basket  for  his  head-gear,  a  wisp  of  straw  for  his 
cloak,  and  a  portion  of  another  for  his  sandals.  These,  with  a 
few  of  the  ordinary  village  crafts,  fill  up  the  straggling  line  of 
houses.  Once  merged  out  of  a  bourg  or  township,  we  come 
upon  a  broad  road  lined  with  trees,  giving  pleasant  glimpses 
of  the  wide  bay  of  Yeddo  between  their  branches,  and  the 
distant  line  of  hills  on  the  opposite  shore.  The  trees  yield  a 
grateful  shade  even  at  this  time  of  the  year,  the  depth  of  win- 
ter, the  sun  in  the  middle  of  the  day  having  still  much  pow- 
er ;  but  the  pine,  and  even  the  cryptomena,  of  which  the  trees 
here  chiefly  consist,  are  not  the  best  adapted  for  this  purpose. 
On  both  sides,  but  chiefly  inland,  are  fields  of  grain  and  vege- 
tables, those  devoted  to  paddy  now  lying  fallow,  while  the 
stork  and  wild-fowl  have  undisturbed  possession,  and  cover  the 
ground. 

After  a  seven-mile  ride  along  tlie  road  which  skirts  the  bay, 
the  traveler  from  Kanagawa  comes  to  the  River  Logo,  the 
])Ound:iry  of  the  limits  within  which  foreigners  may  travel  or 
wander  for  their  pleasure  from  that  place  without  a  passport. 
Here  is  a  police  station,  and  a  passport  is  rigorously  demanded 
for  any  foreigner  seeking  to  pass  the  ferry. 

A  few  minutes  suffice  to  ferry  man  and  horse  across — gratis, 


rAHSINQ    THK    RIVKK 


404  TUKEK  YEAK8  IN  JAPAN.  [CiiAr.XXII. 

if  in  the  employment  of  the  government.  The  horses  take  to 
it  kindly  as  you  see,  and  horse,  baggage,  men,  and  women,  all 
stand  or  squat  together  in  the  flat-bottomed  boat  in  a  very  pro- 
miscuous and  friendly  manner.  And  now,  as  we  approach  the 
capital,  the  traffic  along  the  road  increases  :  here  is  a  family  of 
the  poorer  class,  apparently  with  all  their  worldly  goods,  leav- 
mg  the  city ;  the  wife  and  her  child  are  doubled  up  in  a  can- 
go,  protected  from  the  drizzling  rain  by  an  oiled  paper  roof 
and  apron ;  the  husband  and  one  or  two  boys,  with  a  porter 
carrying  heavier  baggage,  follow.  Two  or  three  men  succeed 
these — common  soldiers,  possibly,  for  they  have  one  sword, 
:md  not  so  fierce  a  look  as  some  of  their  two-sworded  fraterni- 
ty, while  a  white  hood  drawn  under  the  chin,  and  covering  the 
lower  part  of  the  mouth,  half  masks  the  whole  face,  and  gives 
them  something  of  the  look  of 'men  at  arms' in  the  days  of  the 
Templars.  Here  is  a  norimon  with  two  children  placed  knee 
to  knee  opposite  each  other  vis-a-vis,  with  powdered  and  paint- 
ed faces,  dressed  so  as  exactly  to  represent  two  huge  Dutch 
dolls.  This  mania  of  the  Japanese  for  painting  and  powdering 
their  skins  with  flour  makes  them  hideous,  with  Art  for  the  dis- 
tigurer.  Now  and  then  one  meets  a  Japanese  maiden  with  a 
clean-washed  face  and  unstained  teeth,  neither  wanting  in  come- 
liness nor  intelligence, but  such  visions  are  indeed  'few  and  far 
between.'  Of  the  ladies  of  Japan  no  chance  passenger  can 
speak ;  they  are  never  visible  to  a  stranger,  and  it  yet  remains 
to  be  seen  whether  the  barrier  now  existing  will  ever  be  re- 
moved. One  of  the  oldest  residents  in  Japan,  at  Nagasaki, 
and  well  placed  for  successful  efibrt,  once  made  the  attempt 
Avith  an  oflicial  in  intimate  and  cordial  relations,  but  he  was  as- 
sured that  compliance  would  inevitably  bring  disgrace  upon 
him  and  all  his  family.  I  can  not  help  thinking  some  rather 
erroneous  notions  have  been  disseminated  by  the  writers  on 
Japan  in  respect  to  the  position  and  relations  of  the  wife  here. 
That  she  may  be  more  of  a  companion  to  her  husband,  and  on 
a  greater  footing  of  equality  than  in  other  Eastern  countries, 
is  possible ;  but  she  is  as  strictly  forbidden  by  the  laws  and 
customs  of  the  country  from  entering  into  society,  or  being 
seen  by  any  but  those  of  her  own  family,  as  any  inmate  of  a 
harem.  When  traveling,  or  passing  from  house  to  house,  it  is 
always  in  a  norimon  hermetically  closed  and  surrounded  by 
her  husband's  attendants.  I  speak  of  the  upper  classes  ;  the 
lower  and  working  orders,  here  as  elsewhere,  by  the  necessity 
of  labor,  can  not  be  shut  up. 

The  distance  shortens  to  Yeddo,  and  the  journey  promises 
to  be  uneventful.    Here  comes  the  only  element  of  mischief 


Chap.  XXII.]  JAPANESE  COMPLAINT.  405 

iu  the  shape  of  some  roistering  evil-eyed  and  double-sworde<! 
retainers  of  a  Dairaio.  There  are  three  or  four  of  them,  all 
mounted,  with  the  Prince  of  Satsuraa's  cognizance  on  their 
sleeves.  And  now  they  see  us ;  keep  your  horse  well  in  hand, 
for  here  the  two  foremost  come  at  headlong  speed.  *Will 
they  ride  us  down  ?'  '  Can  not  possibly  say ;  but  if  not,  they 
will  go  very  near.  Keep  a  steady  hand  and  a  quick  eye.' 
There!  they  have  passed,  only  brushing  our  stirrups ;  bent  on 
showing  their  own  prowess,  and  not  unwilling  to  try  ours, 
with  a  dash  of  defiance  to  the  Giaour ;  for  to  this  class,  adopt- 
ing the  feelings  of  their  masters,  as  we  must  suppose,  we  are 
all  dogs  of  Christians  and  aliens,  hateful  in  both  characters. 
It  was  reported  of  Count  Mouravieff,  when  at  Yeddo,  that 
among  the  complimentary  phrases  which  form  a  necessary  pre- 
lude to  business  in  the  East,  on  the  occasion  of  his  visit  to 
some  of  the  ministers,  he  spoke  in  congratulatory  terms  of  the 
new  and  pacific  relations  now  established  with  all  the  great 
maritime  Powers  of  the  West,  to  which  the  Minister  respond- 
ed with  an  amount  of  truth  and  sincerity,  which  could  only  be 
accounted  for  on  the  preacher's  wise  saying,  that '  out  of  the 
fullness  of  the  heart  the  tongue  speaketh.'  '  You  congratulate 
us,'  was  the  reply, '  on  the  new  relations  now  established,  but 
these  have  hitherto  only  been  to  us  sources  of  trouble  and  vex- 
ation, each  day  bringing  forth  some  new  cause  of  anxiety,  or 
some  new  complaint  on  the  part  of  foreigners,'  What  might 
be  the  rejoinder  report  does  not  tell ;  but  there  was  an  answer, 
a  true  answer,  it  were  a  pity  not  to  have  given,  even  though 
it  might  have  brought  no  immediate  conviction.  Sources  of 
complaint,  of  vexation  to  the  authorities  and  anxiety  on  both 
sides,  have  indeed  been  plentiful;  but  chiefly,  if  not  solely  due 
to  the  bad  faith  and  shnftling  of  officials,  unwilling  to  give  ex- 
ecution to  the  plainest  provisions  of  treaties,  and  not,  as  the 
ministers  evidently  would  have  it  inferi'ed,  to  the  unreasonable 
exigencies  of  foreigners,  though  these  may  not  always  be  fault- 
less either.  Those  first  arriving  as  pioneers  in  a  far  Eastern 
country  are  not  generally  the  most  refined  or  select  specimens 
of  their  class  or  nation. 

And  now  we  approach  Sinagawa,  the  great  suburb  immedi- 
ately before  Yedclo  itself,  already  more  than  once  referred  to. 
Here,  at  night,  the  whole  road  is  an  illumination  of  lanterns, 
with  frequenters  of  the  numerous  tea-houses  and  places  of  en- 
tertainmiMit  situated  here  passing  to  and  fro.  The  two-sword- 
ed  men,  on  foot  and  in  norimons,  block  up  the  way,  and  woe 
betide  any  luckless  man  of  the  inferior  class  who  comes  across 
their  path  ;  for  atler  eight  o'clock  the  said  is  in  and  the  wit  is 


406  THREE  YEAKb  IN  JAPAN.  [Cuap.  XXII. 

out,  aud  any  discretion  with  it,  which,  in  more  lucid  moments, 
the  race  of  swashbucklers  may  boast.  Their  hand  is  often  un 
the  hilt  of  their  sharp-edged  sword,  and  always  in  unpleasant 
proximity.  It  is  not  yet  the  dangerous  hour,  so  we  shall  prob- 
ably pass  unmolested. 

The  subui'b  of  Sinagavva,  of  evil  repute,  is  passed,  and  now 
the  bay  opposite  Yeddo,  with  its  line  of  forts,  opens  once  more 
upon  us,  a  few  refreshment-booths  alone  interposing;  while  in- 
land is  a  great  barrack  with  closed  gates — powder-magazines, 
and  opposite  a  newly-formed  battery,  to  protect  the  shore  at 
this  point.  Two  others  are  being  built  upon  the  shallows 
there,  so  as  completely  to  cover  the  approach  to  Yeddo  on  the 
water  side  by  a  whole  line  of  batteries  armed  with  guns.  In 
the  barracks  to  our  left,  and  at  many  of  the  Daimios'  resi- 
dences, the  noise  of  musket-practice  may  be  heard.  It  looks 
very  warlike ;  and  whether  it  be  merely  the  result  of  a  mistrust 
in  the  pacific  intentions  of  Foreign  Powers  generally,  or  any 
one  in  particular,  or  intended  to  impose  on  the  diplomatic 
agents  now  residing  in  the  capital  by  daily  evidence  of  a  state 
of  preparation  for  battle ;  or  whether,  finally,  it  be  the  result 
of  a  foregone  conclusion  that,  sooner  or  later,  collision  is  inev- 
itable, or  wiU  be  made  so  by  them,  if  not  by  us,  and  that  they 
may  be  prepared  for  such  a  contingency,  I  have  already  said, 
no  one  is  in  a  position  to  speak  very  positively.  But  all  these 
notes  of  preparation  for  battle  are  sufficiently  remarkable  and 
significant.  Here  we  arrive  safe  from  all  dangers  of  the  road, 
only  'ware  horses!'  They  are  all  vicious  brutes  —  stallions 
ever  ready  to  kick  and  bite.  There !  you  are  lucky  that  brute, 
relieved  of  his  pack  and  carelessly  led,  has  only  left  the  mark 
of  his  hind  hoof  on  your  saddle-cloth  ;  six  inches  farther  for- 
ward and  it  might  have  broken  your  thigh.  Let  it  be  a  warn- 
ing to  you,  on  a  Japanese  road,  to  give  a  wide  berth  to  the 
whole  race  of  pack-horses,  and  a  good  eye  on  every  other,  or 
you  will  certainly  be  rolled  in  the  dust  some  day.  That  is  a 
warning  for  you,  and  if  you  look  back  you  will  see  the  groom 
is  giving  a  warning  to  the  owner  of  the  paok-horse  to  keep  a 
more  respectfid  distance  another  time.  'But  he  will  hurt  him.' 
'  Well,  I  hope  he  will,  a  little ;  but  do  not  be  the  least  alarm- 
ed ;  for,  first,  observe  the  man  makes  not  the  least  resistance,  so 
conscious  is  he  that  he  is  only  meeting  his  deserts ;  and,  next, 
that  the  cudgel  with  which  he  is  being  belabored  is  only  the 
umbrella  I  bought  on  the  road,  made  of  light  bamboo  and  oil- 
paper, which  most  assuredly  will  come  out  of  the  fray  with 
much  more  serious  damage  than  the  man's  head.' 

And  so  ends  our  journey  to  Yeddo,  and  the  panorama  of  the 


Chai-.  XXII.] 


8AIONAKA ! 


407 


high  road.  Saionarat  the  salutation  of  the  Japanese,  loseA 
nothing  in  softness  by  contrast  either  with  the  French  adieu 
or  the  Italian  addio ;  while  the  elaborate  courtesy  of  the  horse- 
keeper  and  ray  servant  there  distance  any  thing  you  or  I  caa 
attempt  in  the  same  line. 


'saionara!' 


BND   OF  VOL.  I. 


THE  LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


STACK  COLLECTION 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAAAPED  BELOW. 


m\^H  «3r  1998 


1  Om-5,'65  (F4458si)  476D 


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UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA      000  142  244    3 


